I don’t get people who jog, run or walk around on the streets with music in their ears because for me, you’re neither appreciating what you’re doing, which is walking or running, nor are you really appreciating your music. Music becomes background and it’s just wallpaper.
I like to sit down and put a record on, preferably with a needle and scratches, or at least listen to it and read the sleeve notes and enjoy the music. And if you’re walking around the streets – apart from the fact that you might get mugged or hit by a car without hearing it — even if you’re being bored, I think it’s good to appreciate what it’s like being bored.
I mean you’re still bored if you’ve got the music on. Except that you don’t think you are being bored. So you’re bored and you’re being stupid. -- Sir Tim Rice
Very Tao-Zen. Be in the moment.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Proof of welfare's multiple failings
Noel Pearson
From: The Australian
March 05, 2011
AFTER 10 years looking to North America and Britain for reform inspiration in the fight against poverty, I come to the conclusion we are looking in the wrong places. There is a country in our own region from which we have more to learn: Singapore.
When we began our crusade in Cape York Peninsula, we were in part inspired by the reforms in the US under president Bill Clinton when congress enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996. Conditionality in welfare and strong work obligation requirements were obvious lessons from the US experience.
We also looked to prime minister Tony Blair's less conclusive attempts in Britain, where the rhetoric of social inclusion was resonant but little concrete reform ensued. In Australia, Julia Gillard is an enthusiast of such New Labour concepts and as deputy prime minister established a Social Inclusion Board soon after Labor came to power in 2007.
The problem with Australian policy-makers and leaders looking to the US and Britain for solutions to problems of poverty and social misery among disadvantaged people is there is scant evidence of success.
The Clinton reforms reduced welfare rolls at a time of high employment and a buoyant economy, but the US is hardly a paragon of poverty elimination and mobilisation of the lowest classes. The same goes for Britain.
Why are we looking to these countries for policy solutions when the story of decades past shows they are struggling with the same problems without making much of a fist of them?
Yet when you look at the story of Singapore since 1965, when it gained independence, you see a society whose success in achieving the broad-based uplifting of its people is unparalleled. Income levels and rates of home and apartment ownership in Singapore speak of a people rising out of the Third World and into the First.
It is probably hard to think of a less analogous situation to remote and undeveloped Cape York Peninsula than that of the modern city-state of Singapore, peopled by an enterprising population of Chinese, Indians and Malays exploiting the special blessings of their geography, but I contend the policy lessons are germane.
Before I identify those lessons, let me outline the Singapore story.
In his fascinating memoirs, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew says he and his fellow leaders aimed to create for their country "a fair society, not a welfare society". Lee recognised from the beginning the form of welfare provisioning the advanced Western nations were implementing would produce problems, and his country explicitly pursued a different philosophy and a different path.
He writes: "Watching the ever-increasing costs of the welfare state in Britain and Sweden, we decided to avoid this debilitating system. We noted by the 1970s that when governments undertook primary responsibility for the basic duties of the head of a family, the drive in people weakened.
"Welfare undermined self-reliance. People did not have to work for their families' wellbeing. The handout became a way of life. The downward spiral was relentless as motivation and productivity went down. People lost the drive to achieve because they paid too much in taxes. They became dependent on the state for their basic needs."
The great difference between the Singaporean approach and that of the welfare states of the Western world was, as Lee writes: "We chose to redistribute wealth by asset-enhancement, not by subsidies for consumption."
There is in fact a great deal of redistribution in Singapore: it is just that it is strictly aimed at the asset and wealth development capabilities of its citizens.
Central to the entire approach is the compulsory savings system of the country's Central Provident Fund. The leaders of Singapore built around the CPF an array of individual and family solutions for home and apartment ownership, retirement funds and healthcare co-payment insurance funds. They mandated family-based solutions to welfare while subsidising those things that enhanced the earning and asset accumulation capacities of individuals.
By mandating a universal approach to compulsory savings and home ownership, Singapore included everyone in the society. The denizens of the shanties were not left to their own devices. They, too, were obliged and supported into apartment ownership.
Lee writes of the transition phase, when families used to living in shanties first moved into apartments, taking their ducks and chooks with them. Singapore did not lock a certain section of society out of the development pathway; it developed the support structures to allow a broad-based mobility.
The following lessons can be drawn from what is sometimes called a Confucian approach to development.
First, the Singaporeans upheld the primacy of individual and family self-interest to climb to a better life. Lee writes: "I work on the basis that all men and women first work for themselves and their families, and only then will they share a portion of it with the less fortunate."
Australians may find Lee's philosophical starting point here a bit disturbing, but a proper self-reflection on our mundane motivations should disabuse all of us from of our moral recoil. In our cups, we are similarly motivated.
Second, they established strong supports to guide individuals and families to climb to greater prosperity. Our metaphor of the staircase of opportunity that individuals climb in pursuit of their own interests is supplemented by a set of railings. The railings represent a support system that requires everyone to make provision for a full range of fundamental needs, including the need to save and get into home ownership.
Third, the Singaporeans aimed to put everyone on the development path and did not want an underclass to develop. The most astounding thing is how the former union lawyer turned founding father of modern Singapore maintained such a hard-nosed commitment to an egalitarian society based on market capitalism rather than socialism.
Fourth, they redistributed money to promote wealth and asset development, not consumption. The lesson here is subsidising consumption is fatal. By doing so you neutralise the most important incentive to strive and work.
Finally, they maintained a paternalistic approach to social order and responsibility.
It is this last feature that dominates the Western caricature of Singapore and obscures a proper appreciation of its achievement and, more importantly, how they did it in countries such as Australia. Lee's paternalism is sourced in Confucius rather than Mao. Singapore is a story of paternalism, not authoritarianism.
Singapore's national success writes large the principle articulated by American welfare reform theorist Lawrence Meade: "He who would be free must first be bound."
In other words, for Singapore to free itself from poverty the people first had to bind themselves to certain disciplines.
In other words, for Singapore to free itself from poverty the people first had to bind themselves to certain disciplines.
[Here's a view of Singapore's development as processual or hierarchical like Maslow's - that before one can pursue freedoms, one must first be disciplined (and therefore not free?). Only when one's society is relatively free of poverty can one pursue higher needs or wants or rights.]
I will not persuade those who think Singaporeans' journey out of the mud of Third World poverty into the advantages of the First World should have been accompanied by the perfect freedoms and licences enjoyed by their Western contemporaries. Cosmopolitan liberals forget the freedoms they enjoy are the outcome of a struggle for development in previous times.
I will not persuade those who think Singaporeans' journey out of the mud of Third World poverty into the advantages of the First World should have been accompanied by the perfect freedoms and licences enjoyed by their Western contemporaries. Cosmopolitan liberals forget the freedoms they enjoy are the outcome of a struggle for development in previous times.
Conceding that Singapore-style paternalism is not feasible in a liberal country such as Australia, it is nevertheless imperative that we consider the applicability of a developmental paradigm to the problems endured by those parts of Australia where inter-generational disadvantage is entrenched.
Discrete indigenous communities are obvious, but so are postcodes where white and immigrant underclasses predominate. The context could not be more dissimilar but the reform principles underpinning Singapore's path out of poverty are universal.
Singapore went through stages of development over 50 years, and they were led by patriots who cared about the place and its people: the sacrifices, the thrift, the hard work and the determination were part of a national undertaking.
Western nations such as Australia that are developmentally mature nevertheless have people and places that suffer from unacceptable and unnecessary levels of stagnation and poverty.
These require a people and place-based developmental approach. Can we conceive ways of tackling these postcodes of disadvantage by mobilising the patriots of these places to embark on the road to development?
Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. This is an edited extract from his 2011 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture delivered in Melbourne this week.
Monday, March 7, 2011
On Polygamy
Mar 3, 2011
Why polygamy should be allowed
By Andy Ho, Senior Writer
IN JANUARY, Dr Gordon Tan suggested in this newspaper's Forum that Singapore's low fertility rate was perhaps 'reason enough for us to revisit polygamy'.
Busy husbands with equally busy wives should be able to have younger wives who stay home to bear lots of children, he mused. All things being equal, polygamy should lead to more babies.
However, the gynaecologist's idea first requires the decriminalisation of polygamy, which the 1961 Women's Charter outlawed for all except Muslims.
South African President Jacob Zuma has four wives as the law of the land permits customary plural marriages. French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy says she prefers polygamy to monogamy. The Canadian government is studying if polygamy should be decriminalised. And Big Love, an HBO series about a polygamous community, has given the cause a worldwide audience.
Proponents urge that we should cease regarding marriage as a state-ordained institution. Someone is not married just because the state says so, they argue. Instead, marrying someone is an 'intimacy right' that pre-existed government.
Thus, decriminalising polygamy would simply mean getting government out of marriage. The state should play the role of only the keeper of public records - in this case, of the contractual arrangements that consenting adults have a natural right to make as partners.
Opponents counter that polygamy is inherently unstable. Monogamy enables couples to bring up their children and fulfil their intimacy needs in a committed relationship between two adults.
By contrast, a polygamous set-up is no menage a trois or menage a quatre. That is, each adult in these plural set-ups is not symmetrically 'married' to each of the other adults. It is only the women who would be married to one man and this asymmetry is structurally unstable.
Suppose Ah Beng is married to Ah Lien, who proves to be childless, and Ah Mei, who bears five kids. Suppose Ah Lien remains healthy but Ah Mei contracts cancer. Or Ah Lien is a corporate high-flier while Ah Mei, though equally credentialled, stays home for the children and feels of less worth as a result.
Even if Ah Beng were the fairest of husbands, the ill and depressed Ah Mei will need more of his time, so Ah Lien gets less. Even monogamous marriages fall apart when a spouse does not get enough of the other's time. If so, Ah Lien is not likely to hold up under such stress.
The children would also be neglected as they are not really Ah Lien's, who is too busy wheeling and dealing out there anyway. Since polygamous families are structurally defective in all these ways, it is right to ban such marriages, opponents surmise.
But these harms, especially the adverse effects on children, are to be found in 'serial polygamy', which is what easy divorce leads to. Yet not only is divorce not banned, it is in fact protected legally.
Advocates say there would be more warm bodies in a plural marriage to support the household economy, which can include real companionship among the many wives. In what is, in essence, an extended family, the children can benefit from having more parental caregivers and half-siblings.
Past the child-rearing stage, we age and ail. But in our dotage, death can remove the one who would have been our caregiver. In this sense, polygamy is a self-help form of social insurance.
While polygamists are made out to be abusive, so are some monogamists, which does not make monogamy bad per se. And it is not empirically known if there is more abuse in one than the other.
But it is the stigmatisation by anti-polygamy laws that makes for an environment in which any abuse in polygamous arrangements can go undetected and unpunished. Victims are afraid to get help from law enforcement, which might use the evidence gathered against the abuser to prosecute the whole family unit for polygamy. Children might then be removed from parents, thus breaking up such polygamous families.
Interestingly, three women in polygamist marriages - Ms Mary Batchelor, Ms Marianne Watson and Ms Anne Wilde - have collected personal essays from more than 100 other similar wives who see polygamy positively. The trio published these essays as Voices In Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage (2000).
In it, Ms Leanne Timpson writes: 'I am a product of the civil rights movement, of feminism, and of education... To tell us that as women we don't have the right to marry the man of our choice is amazing.'
Or take Ms Marlyne Hammond, who says: 'I don't see why (polygamy) has to be a crime, when other people... indiscriminately have (sexual) associations with other women and not take care of the children.'
The book was so well received that the three women went on to found an advocacy group called Principle Voices. Ms Batchelor, a well-educated, articulate woman, has become the movement's mainstream female face. She defies the stereotype of the victimised and exploited plural wife. Technically a felon, she mounts court challenges to overturn laws that criminalise polygamy.
If you are Singapore's very own Batchelor willing to step out to fight for the decriminalisation of polygamy, you could well be the key to ending our baby dearth. Whether the majority will support your quest remains an empirical question.
andyho@sph.com.sg
Mar 5, 2011
Next family slogan: Stop at two... wives?
IT HAS been a while since Dr Andy Ho encouraged a certain course in his columns, rather than highlighting negative aspects of issues ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday). Thank you, Dr Ho.
I have a friend whose mother died when he and his brother were a few years old. His father's second wife took over the burden of the young family almost immediately. Is any woman prepared for this now?
I also know of a woman who married her late sister's husband soon after her death to take over the care of two young children. She later bore two children of her own and they all live harmoniously together.
Is any woman ready for such an eventuality now?
The point of these real-life vignettes is not to ask why polygamy should be allowed, but how.
No amount of legislation will ensure harmony in a family setting when so many matters may require settling.
Raising and loving children who are not one's own require sacrifices and the indescribable quality of give, give and give. Perhaps, our next family slogan should maintain the 'Stop At Two' format.
Yes, please stop at... two wives if the birth rate does not go up.
Will my wife nail me to the wall when she reads this? No, because I stopped at one.
Chen Sen Lenn
Forget impractical polygamy, lower cost of raising kids
MORAL or ideological arguments aside, demographics do not support the wide practice of polygamy ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday). The latest census states that there are 974 men for every 1,000 women. Even if we allow for those who would wish to remain single, there may not be many women ready to entertain the idea of polygamy.
What to do then? Well, the demographics would have to be changed drastically if polygamy were to take root here. Singapore would have to take in more female immigrants.
But if the purpose of accepting these immigrants is to have them serve as stay-at-home second or third wives to Singaporean men, it is very likely we would succeed in attracting only women who are not very educated or urbanised, thereby rendering their integration a big problem.
Moreover, as male citizens with the best means to afford to be in a polygamous marriage are likely those who are more educated, matching them with wives they cannot connect with on an intellectual level is hardly a recipe for stable marriages.
It is unlikely that educated modern women in foreign countries would choose to live in Singapore by playing second or third fiddle to their Singaporean husbands. It is also unlikely that educated Singaporean men will want to marry poorly educated women from foreign countries.
Given the above, decriminalising polygamy would most likely see only an insignificant number of polygamous marriages.
So rather than resort to wayward and impractical ways to raise our fertility rate by complicating our social make-up, we would be better served by continuing to think of more ways to make raising children more affordable.
Jack Chew Yong
Marriage is about love too - not just making babies
DR ANDY Ho's commentary ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday) raises deeper questions about marriage and society without adequately addressing them.
The main reason for revisiting the issue, it seems, is the seemingly innocuous idea that decriminalising polygamy 'could well be the key to ending our baby dearth'.
But Dr Ho ignores a pertinent question: Is marriage subservient to our economic needs (in this context, producing more babies), or are there deeper philosophical-moral principles about monogamous marriage worth preserving, even at the expense of our fertility rate?
The very suggestion that raising the fertility rate is good grounds for permitting polygamy conceives (pun intended) the woman's primary role in marriage as a baby-making one, a stand many married career women are likely to resent.
If raising the fertility rate were the main objective, there is nothing to stop governments from abolishing marriage and its attendant civil rights.
Let consenting adults live with multiple partners and reproduce as freely as they please because this would logically produce far more babies.
Who will take care of the resultant children? Surely there will be those adults really in love who will live together and provide a family for them.
This would be the logical result, if not for a further consideration which Dr Ho's column does not address: whether there is any intrinsic worth in monogamous marriage that surpasses mere economic thinking.
In other words, is marriage about love before it is about sex and babies? Nowhere does married love feature in Dr Ho's commentary, which reduces marriage to a purely economic institution.
Dr Ho perhaps reasonably proves that monogamous marriages are not necessarily more stable or less abusive than polygamous ones, and how these stereotypes are often a consequence of anti-polygamy laws.
But this reasoning proves nothing more than the fact that polygamy is possibly stable and non-abusive; it avoids discussion of fundamental principles.
It shows us that polygamy can work, but does not prove that polygamy is morally acceptable or right. Neither does telling us that South African President Jacob Zuma has four wives and the French President's wife Carla Bruni supports polygamy, for that matter.
Michael Cyssel Wee
Why polygamy should be allowed
By Andy Ho, Senior Writer
IN JANUARY, Dr Gordon Tan suggested in this newspaper's Forum that Singapore's low fertility rate was perhaps 'reason enough for us to revisit polygamy'.
Busy husbands with equally busy wives should be able to have younger wives who stay home to bear lots of children, he mused. All things being equal, polygamy should lead to more babies.
However, the gynaecologist's idea first requires the decriminalisation of polygamy, which the 1961 Women's Charter outlawed for all except Muslims.
South African President Jacob Zuma has four wives as the law of the land permits customary plural marriages. French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy says she prefers polygamy to monogamy. The Canadian government is studying if polygamy should be decriminalised. And Big Love, an HBO series about a polygamous community, has given the cause a worldwide audience.
Proponents urge that we should cease regarding marriage as a state-ordained institution. Someone is not married just because the state says so, they argue. Instead, marrying someone is an 'intimacy right' that pre-existed government.
Thus, decriminalising polygamy would simply mean getting government out of marriage. The state should play the role of only the keeper of public records - in this case, of the contractual arrangements that consenting adults have a natural right to make as partners.
Opponents counter that polygamy is inherently unstable. Monogamy enables couples to bring up their children and fulfil their intimacy needs in a committed relationship between two adults.
By contrast, a polygamous set-up is no menage a trois or menage a quatre. That is, each adult in these plural set-ups is not symmetrically 'married' to each of the other adults. It is only the women who would be married to one man and this asymmetry is structurally unstable.
Suppose Ah Beng is married to Ah Lien, who proves to be childless, and Ah Mei, who bears five kids. Suppose Ah Lien remains healthy but Ah Mei contracts cancer. Or Ah Lien is a corporate high-flier while Ah Mei, though equally credentialled, stays home for the children and feels of less worth as a result.
Even if Ah Beng were the fairest of husbands, the ill and depressed Ah Mei will need more of his time, so Ah Lien gets less. Even monogamous marriages fall apart when a spouse does not get enough of the other's time. If so, Ah Lien is not likely to hold up under such stress.
The children would also be neglected as they are not really Ah Lien's, who is too busy wheeling and dealing out there anyway. Since polygamous families are structurally defective in all these ways, it is right to ban such marriages, opponents surmise.
But these harms, especially the adverse effects on children, are to be found in 'serial polygamy', which is what easy divorce leads to. Yet not only is divorce not banned, it is in fact protected legally.
Advocates say there would be more warm bodies in a plural marriage to support the household economy, which can include real companionship among the many wives. In what is, in essence, an extended family, the children can benefit from having more parental caregivers and half-siblings.
Past the child-rearing stage, we age and ail. But in our dotage, death can remove the one who would have been our caregiver. In this sense, polygamy is a self-help form of social insurance.
While polygamists are made out to be abusive, so are some monogamists, which does not make monogamy bad per se. And it is not empirically known if there is more abuse in one than the other.
But it is the stigmatisation by anti-polygamy laws that makes for an environment in which any abuse in polygamous arrangements can go undetected and unpunished. Victims are afraid to get help from law enforcement, which might use the evidence gathered against the abuser to prosecute the whole family unit for polygamy. Children might then be removed from parents, thus breaking up such polygamous families.
Interestingly, three women in polygamist marriages - Ms Mary Batchelor, Ms Marianne Watson and Ms Anne Wilde - have collected personal essays from more than 100 other similar wives who see polygamy positively. The trio published these essays as Voices In Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage (2000).
In it, Ms Leanne Timpson writes: 'I am a product of the civil rights movement, of feminism, and of education... To tell us that as women we don't have the right to marry the man of our choice is amazing.'
Or take Ms Marlyne Hammond, who says: 'I don't see why (polygamy) has to be a crime, when other people... indiscriminately have (sexual) associations with other women and not take care of the children.'
The book was so well received that the three women went on to found an advocacy group called Principle Voices. Ms Batchelor, a well-educated, articulate woman, has become the movement's mainstream female face. She defies the stereotype of the victimised and exploited plural wife. Technically a felon, she mounts court challenges to overturn laws that criminalise polygamy.
If you are Singapore's very own Batchelor willing to step out to fight for the decriminalisation of polygamy, you could well be the key to ending our baby dearth. Whether the majority will support your quest remains an empirical question.
andyho@sph.com.sg
Mar 5, 2011
Next family slogan: Stop at two... wives?
IT HAS been a while since Dr Andy Ho encouraged a certain course in his columns, rather than highlighting negative aspects of issues ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday). Thank you, Dr Ho.
I have a friend whose mother died when he and his brother were a few years old. His father's second wife took over the burden of the young family almost immediately. Is any woman prepared for this now?
I also know of a woman who married her late sister's husband soon after her death to take over the care of two young children. She later bore two children of her own and they all live harmoniously together.
Is any woman ready for such an eventuality now?
The point of these real-life vignettes is not to ask why polygamy should be allowed, but how.
No amount of legislation will ensure harmony in a family setting when so many matters may require settling.
Raising and loving children who are not one's own require sacrifices and the indescribable quality of give, give and give. Perhaps, our next family slogan should maintain the 'Stop At Two' format.
Yes, please stop at... two wives if the birth rate does not go up.
Will my wife nail me to the wall when she reads this? No, because I stopped at one.
Chen Sen Lenn
Forget impractical polygamy, lower cost of raising kids
MORAL or ideological arguments aside, demographics do not support the wide practice of polygamy ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday). The latest census states that there are 974 men for every 1,000 women. Even if we allow for those who would wish to remain single, there may not be many women ready to entertain the idea of polygamy.
What to do then? Well, the demographics would have to be changed drastically if polygamy were to take root here. Singapore would have to take in more female immigrants.
But if the purpose of accepting these immigrants is to have them serve as stay-at-home second or third wives to Singaporean men, it is very likely we would succeed in attracting only women who are not very educated or urbanised, thereby rendering their integration a big problem.
Moreover, as male citizens with the best means to afford to be in a polygamous marriage are likely those who are more educated, matching them with wives they cannot connect with on an intellectual level is hardly a recipe for stable marriages.
It is unlikely that educated modern women in foreign countries would choose to live in Singapore by playing second or third fiddle to their Singaporean husbands. It is also unlikely that educated Singaporean men will want to marry poorly educated women from foreign countries.
Given the above, decriminalising polygamy would most likely see only an insignificant number of polygamous marriages.
So rather than resort to wayward and impractical ways to raise our fertility rate by complicating our social make-up, we would be better served by continuing to think of more ways to make raising children more affordable.
Jack Chew Yong
Marriage is about love too - not just making babies
DR ANDY Ho's commentary ('Why polygamy should be allowed'; Thursday) raises deeper questions about marriage and society without adequately addressing them.
The main reason for revisiting the issue, it seems, is the seemingly innocuous idea that decriminalising polygamy 'could well be the key to ending our baby dearth'.
But Dr Ho ignores a pertinent question: Is marriage subservient to our economic needs (in this context, producing more babies), or are there deeper philosophical-moral principles about monogamous marriage worth preserving, even at the expense of our fertility rate?
The very suggestion that raising the fertility rate is good grounds for permitting polygamy conceives (pun intended) the woman's primary role in marriage as a baby-making one, a stand many married career women are likely to resent.
If raising the fertility rate were the main objective, there is nothing to stop governments from abolishing marriage and its attendant civil rights.
Let consenting adults live with multiple partners and reproduce as freely as they please because this would logically produce far more babies.
Who will take care of the resultant children? Surely there will be those adults really in love who will live together and provide a family for them.
This would be the logical result, if not for a further consideration which Dr Ho's column does not address: whether there is any intrinsic worth in monogamous marriage that surpasses mere economic thinking.
In other words, is marriage about love before it is about sex and babies? Nowhere does married love feature in Dr Ho's commentary, which reduces marriage to a purely economic institution.
Dr Ho perhaps reasonably proves that monogamous marriages are not necessarily more stable or less abusive than polygamous ones, and how these stereotypes are often a consequence of anti-polygamy laws.
But this reasoning proves nothing more than the fact that polygamy is possibly stable and non-abusive; it avoids discussion of fundamental principles.
It shows us that polygamy can work, but does not prove that polygamy is morally acceptable or right. Neither does telling us that South African President Jacob Zuma has four wives and the French President's wife Carla Bruni supports polygamy, for that matter.
Michael Cyssel Wee
Budget goodies could lead to an unhealthy 'culture of demand': MP
Mar 02, 2011
by Leong Wee Keat
SINGAPORE - As Members of Parliament voiced support yesterday for the heftiest Government Budget to date, one lawmaker cautioned against an unhealthy "national culture" of expecting goodies and bonuses every year.
Taking part in the Budget debate, Marine Parade GRC MP Ong Seh Hong noted that Singapore was able to have a generous Budget this year due to the changes in the computation of Net Investment Returns (NIR) contributions in 2008. However, he wondered if such a culture of expecting annual Budget goodies signalled "the beginning of the long slide down to a culture of demand".
And while some MPs have called for the Government to do more in the fight against inflation, Tampines GRC MP Ong Kian Min took another tack: He suggested more could be done to help Singaporeans understand that the Government "cannot shield residents completely from the impact of rising costs".
He also warned of another change that may "shake" Singapore's economy: When the low interest rates rise eventually. "Businesses and the man-on-the-street should be prepared for it in their financial planning to avoid rude shocks," he said.
The uncertainty in the global economy also led Holland-Bukit Timah GRC MP Liang Eng Hwa to ask for information on the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings.
"Has the market volatility in the last three years affected the level of the expected long-term real rates of return, which in turn could also affect NIR in future Budgets?" he wondered.
Dr Ong, who also wanted to know if the Republic's reserves have continued to grow in real terms, urged the Government "to be even more prudent and cautious" while preparing for "more uncertainties and future crises", given current world economic and political situations.
Opposition parties have criticised the Budget as "an election Budget", although the Government will put S$4 billion - drawn at the height of the downturn to fund various recovery programmes - back into the reserves.
Meanwhile, some Singaporeans have expressed worries in numerous forums that the cash payouts will not cover all rising costs.
But several ruling party MPs defended the Budget yesterday.
Citing various Budgets announced over the last 40 years, Mrs Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) said they had "very consistent themes", such as not over-taxing, using resources wisely, saving for a rainy day and investing in training, while sharing gains with Singaporeans.
"It feels almost uncanny - you can change the Finance Minister ... and their Budget speeches still sound quite alike," she said.
URL http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110302-0000223/Budget-goodies-could-lead-to-an-unhealthy-culture-of-demand--MP
Copyright 2011 MediaCorp Pte Ltd | All Rights Reserved
by Leong Wee Keat
SINGAPORE - As Members of Parliament voiced support yesterday for the heftiest Government Budget to date, one lawmaker cautioned against an unhealthy "national culture" of expecting goodies and bonuses every year.
Taking part in the Budget debate, Marine Parade GRC MP Ong Seh Hong noted that Singapore was able to have a generous Budget this year due to the changes in the computation of Net Investment Returns (NIR) contributions in 2008. However, he wondered if such a culture of expecting annual Budget goodies signalled "the beginning of the long slide down to a culture of demand".
And while some MPs have called for the Government to do more in the fight against inflation, Tampines GRC MP Ong Kian Min took another tack: He suggested more could be done to help Singaporeans understand that the Government "cannot shield residents completely from the impact of rising costs".
He also warned of another change that may "shake" Singapore's economy: When the low interest rates rise eventually. "Businesses and the man-on-the-street should be prepared for it in their financial planning to avoid rude shocks," he said.
The uncertainty in the global economy also led Holland-Bukit Timah GRC MP Liang Eng Hwa to ask for information on the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings.
"Has the market volatility in the last three years affected the level of the expected long-term real rates of return, which in turn could also affect NIR in future Budgets?" he wondered.
Dr Ong, who also wanted to know if the Republic's reserves have continued to grow in real terms, urged the Government "to be even more prudent and cautious" while preparing for "more uncertainties and future crises", given current world economic and political situations.
Opposition parties have criticised the Budget as "an election Budget", although the Government will put S$4 billion - drawn at the height of the downturn to fund various recovery programmes - back into the reserves.
Meanwhile, some Singaporeans have expressed worries in numerous forums that the cash payouts will not cover all rising costs.
But several ruling party MPs defended the Budget yesterday.
Citing various Budgets announced over the last 40 years, Mrs Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) said they had "very consistent themes", such as not over-taxing, using resources wisely, saving for a rainy day and investing in training, while sharing gains with Singaporeans.
"It feels almost uncanny - you can change the Finance Minister ... and their Budget speeches still sound quite alike," she said.
URL http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110302-0000223/Budget-goodies-could-lead-to-an-unhealthy-culture-of-demand--MP
Copyright 2011 MediaCorp Pte Ltd | All Rights Reserved
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Don't drink 'holy water' raining from tree
Mar 6, 2011
KEPALA BATAS (Malaysia) - THE public have been advised against drinking the 'holy water' showering down from a tree in Pinang Tunggal and another in Sungai Petani, Kedah.
Consumers Association of Penang rural education officer N.V. Subbarow said it was foolish for anyone to wipe their bodies and faces with the water or to drink it.
'People are merely exposing themselves to unknown risks as the authorities have yet to run tests on the water. They should be reminded that many diseases are spread by animals and insects, including leptospirosis which is spread through water,' he said on Saturday.
Thousands of people from as far as Johor and Malacca have been flocking to see the two trees since Feb 26.
Witnesses claimed that they had felt showers from the trees - a 12m-high petai tree in Kampung Lembah Raja, Pinang Tunggal and an 18m-high wild tree in Taman Ria Jaya, Sungai Petani.
Former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia lecturer Professor Zaidi Mat Isa had said the showers could be water discharge or urine from cicadas during mating season. Mr Subbarow said those people making a fast buck from selling the 'holy water' at RM5 (S$2.09) per glass were being 'irresponsible'. 'Who is going to be responsible when the person who drinks the water falls sick?' he said. -- THE STAR/ANN
KEPALA BATAS (Malaysia) - THE public have been advised against drinking the 'holy water' showering down from a tree in Pinang Tunggal and another in Sungai Petani, Kedah.
Consumers Association of Penang rural education officer N.V. Subbarow said it was foolish for anyone to wipe their bodies and faces with the water or to drink it.
'People are merely exposing themselves to unknown risks as the authorities have yet to run tests on the water. They should be reminded that many diseases are spread by animals and insects, including leptospirosis which is spread through water,' he said on Saturday.
Thousands of people from as far as Johor and Malacca have been flocking to see the two trees since Feb 26.
Witnesses claimed that they had felt showers from the trees - a 12m-high petai tree in Kampung Lembah Raja, Pinang Tunggal and an 18m-high wild tree in Taman Ria Jaya, Sungai Petani.
Former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia lecturer Professor Zaidi Mat Isa had said the showers could be water discharge or urine from cicadas during mating season. Mr Subbarow said those people making a fast buck from selling the 'holy water' at RM5 (S$2.09) per glass were being 'irresponsible'. 'Who is going to be responsible when the person who drinks the water falls sick?' he said. -- THE STAR/ANN
The universality of aspirations
Mar 6, 2011
The tumult in the Arab world disproves parts of Huntington's clash of civilisations theory
By David Brooks
Samuel Huntington was one of America's greatest political scientists. In 1993, he published a sensational essay in Foreign Affairs called The Clash Of Civilisations? The essay, which became a book, argued that the post-Cold War world would be marked by civilisational conflict.
Human beings, Huntington wrote, are divided along cultural lines - Western, Islamic, Hindu and so on. There is no universal civilisation. Instead, there are these cultural blocks, each within its own distinct set of values.
The Islamic civilisation, he wrote, is the most troublesome. People in the Arab world do not share the general suppositions of the Western world. Their primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state. Their culture is inhospitable to certain liberal ideals, such as pluralism, individualism and democracy.
Huntington correctly foresaw that the Arab strongman regimes were fragile and were threatened by the masses of unemployed young men. He thought these regimes could fall, but he did not believe that the nations would modernise in a Western direction.
Amid the tumult of regime change, the rebels would selectively borrow tools from the West, but their borrowing would be refracted through their own beliefs. They would follow their own trajectory and not become more Western.
The Muslim world has bloody borders, he continued. There are wars and tensions where the Muslim world comes into conflict with other civilisations. Even if decrepit regimes fell, he suggested, there would still be a fundamental clash of civilisations between Islam and the West. The Western nations would do well to keep their distance from Muslim affairs. The more the two civilisations intermingle, the worse the tensions will be.
[It is clear why gov.sg does not adopt Huntington's hypothesis as it is a recipe for disintegration or a diagnosis for assimilation. But I think LKY probably is persuaded by some of the arguments in part if not in whole.]
Huntington's thesis set off a furious debate. But with the historic changes sweeping through the Arab world, it's illuminating to go back and read his argument today.
In retrospect, I'd say that Huntington committed the Fundamental Attribution Error. That is, he ascribed to traits qualities that are actually determined by context.
He argued that people in Arab lands are intrinsically not nationalistic. He argued that they do not hunger for pluralism and democracy in the way these things are understood in the West. But it now appears as though they were simply living in circumstances that did not allow that patriotism or those spiritual hungers to come to the surface.
It now appears that people in these nations, like people in all nations, have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated.
For most of the past few decades, people in Arab nations were living under regimes that rule by fear. In these circumstances, most people shared the conspiracy mongering and the political passivity that these regimes encouraged. But when the fear lessened, and the opportunity for change arose, different aspirations were energised. Over the past weeks, we've seen Arab people ferociously attached to their national identities. We've seen them willing to risk their lives for pluralism, openness and democracy.
I'd say Huntington was also wrong in the way he defined culture.
In some ways, each of us is like every person on Earth; in some ways, each of us is like the members of our culture and group; and, in some ways, each of us is unique. Huntington minimised the power of universal political values and exaggerated the influence of distinct cultural values. It's easy to see why he did this. He was arguing against global elites who sometimes refuse to acknowledge the power of culture at all.
But it seems clear that many people in Arab nations do share a universal hunger for liberty. They feel the presence of universal human rights and feel insulted when they are not accorded them.
Culture is important, but underneath cultural differences there are these universal aspirations for dignity, for political systems that listen to, respond to and respect the will of the people.
Finally, I'd say Huntington misunderstood the nature of historical change. In his book, he describes transformations that move along linear, projectable trajectories. But that's not how things work in times of tumult.
Instead, one person moves a step. Then the next person moves a step. Pretty soon, millions are caught up in a contagion, activating passions they had but dimly perceived just weeks before. They get swept up in momentums that have no central authority and that, nonetheless, exercise a sweeping influence on those caught up in their tides.
I write all this not to denigrate the great Huntington. He may still be proved right. The Arab world may modernise on its own separate path. But his mistakes illuminate useful truths: that all people share certain aspirations and that history is wide open. The tumult of events can transform the traits and qualities that seemed, even to great experts, etched in stone.
New York Times
The tumult in the Arab world disproves parts of Huntington's clash of civilisations theory
By David Brooks
Samuel Huntington was one of America's greatest political scientists. In 1993, he published a sensational essay in Foreign Affairs called The Clash Of Civilisations? The essay, which became a book, argued that the post-Cold War world would be marked by civilisational conflict.
Human beings, Huntington wrote, are divided along cultural lines - Western, Islamic, Hindu and so on. There is no universal civilisation. Instead, there are these cultural blocks, each within its own distinct set of values.
The Islamic civilisation, he wrote, is the most troublesome. People in the Arab world do not share the general suppositions of the Western world. Their primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state. Their culture is inhospitable to certain liberal ideals, such as pluralism, individualism and democracy.
Huntington correctly foresaw that the Arab strongman regimes were fragile and were threatened by the masses of unemployed young men. He thought these regimes could fall, but he did not believe that the nations would modernise in a Western direction.
Amid the tumult of regime change, the rebels would selectively borrow tools from the West, but their borrowing would be refracted through their own beliefs. They would follow their own trajectory and not become more Western.
The Muslim world has bloody borders, he continued. There are wars and tensions where the Muslim world comes into conflict with other civilisations. Even if decrepit regimes fell, he suggested, there would still be a fundamental clash of civilisations between Islam and the West. The Western nations would do well to keep their distance from Muslim affairs. The more the two civilisations intermingle, the worse the tensions will be.
[It is clear why gov.sg does not adopt Huntington's hypothesis as it is a recipe for disintegration or a diagnosis for assimilation. But I think LKY probably is persuaded by some of the arguments in part if not in whole.]
Huntington's thesis set off a furious debate. But with the historic changes sweeping through the Arab world, it's illuminating to go back and read his argument today.
In retrospect, I'd say that Huntington committed the Fundamental Attribution Error. That is, he ascribed to traits qualities that are actually determined by context.
He argued that people in Arab lands are intrinsically not nationalistic. He argued that they do not hunger for pluralism and democracy in the way these things are understood in the West. But it now appears as though they were simply living in circumstances that did not allow that patriotism or those spiritual hungers to come to the surface.
It now appears that people in these nations, like people in all nations, have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated.
For most of the past few decades, people in Arab nations were living under regimes that rule by fear. In these circumstances, most people shared the conspiracy mongering and the political passivity that these regimes encouraged. But when the fear lessened, and the opportunity for change arose, different aspirations were energised. Over the past weeks, we've seen Arab people ferociously attached to their national identities. We've seen them willing to risk their lives for pluralism, openness and democracy.
I'd say Huntington was also wrong in the way he defined culture.
In some ways, each of us is like every person on Earth; in some ways, each of us is like the members of our culture and group; and, in some ways, each of us is unique. Huntington minimised the power of universal political values and exaggerated the influence of distinct cultural values. It's easy to see why he did this. He was arguing against global elites who sometimes refuse to acknowledge the power of culture at all.
But it seems clear that many people in Arab nations do share a universal hunger for liberty. They feel the presence of universal human rights and feel insulted when they are not accorded them.
Culture is important, but underneath cultural differences there are these universal aspirations for dignity, for political systems that listen to, respond to and respect the will of the people.
Finally, I'd say Huntington misunderstood the nature of historical change. In his book, he describes transformations that move along linear, projectable trajectories. But that's not how things work in times of tumult.
Instead, one person moves a step. Then the next person moves a step. Pretty soon, millions are caught up in a contagion, activating passions they had but dimly perceived just weeks before. They get swept up in momentums that have no central authority and that, nonetheless, exercise a sweeping influence on those caught up in their tides.
I write all this not to denigrate the great Huntington. He may still be proved right. The Arab world may modernise on its own separate path. But his mistakes illuminate useful truths: that all people share certain aspirations and that history is wide open. The tumult of events can transform the traits and qualities that seemed, even to great experts, etched in stone.
New York Times
Powerful military a must: Wen
Mar 6, 2011
Premier's assertion follows news that China's defence budget will rise 12.7%
Beijing - Premier Wen Jiabao vowed yesterday that China would continue building a powerful military, one day after Beijing announced a return to double-digit percentage hikes in defence spending.
'Strengthening national defence and building a powerful people's army are important guarantees for safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests,' Mr Wen said in a speech opening the nation's legislature.
'We will energetically yet prudently press ahead with reform of national defence and the military,' he said.
A spokesman for the National People's Congress said on Friday that China's defence budget would rise 12.7 per cent for this year to 601.1 billion yuan (S$116 billion).
A multi-year trend of double- digit percentage increases was broken last year when the budget rose just 7.5 per cent.
China has upgraded the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities over the past three decades, developing advanced weaponry like its first stealth fighter jet, revealed in January.
The campaign has alarmed the United States, Japan and others in the region and raised fears that a more assertive China would seek to project its power overseas.
'It is an extremely high ratio for defence spending,' Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters on Friday.
'We cannot help worrying about what all the money is used for.'
[As the largest military force in the world, with vast land and sea borders, it is only logical that their military has to be adequately equipped. That the military has no upgraded their equipment for decades (previously) just means that they have a lot of catching up to do. As the second largest economy in the world, it only stands to reason that they have sufficient military might to protect their interest.
What the world is concerned about is probably the fact that the Chinese may not be constrained by ethical or ideological principles that has mostly guided the US as the sole superpower. ]
Yesterday, Mr Wen said 'great progress was made in the modernisation of national defence and the army' in the past five years.
China would continue to develop new weaponry and 'vigorously adapt our military training to the information age', he said.
The announced budget is widely believed to be far lower than actual spending.
Dr Willy Lam, a China analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the published military budget - which he noted was likely only one-third to half of actual spending - will be poured into next-generation equipment.
'The return to this double-digit PLA budget reflects the growing power of the PLA,' he told AFP. 'They are trying to close the gap with Russia and the United States.'
The PLA - the world's largest military force - is hugely secretive about its defence programmes, but insists its modernisation is aimed purely at defence of China's vast land and sea borders.
'This will not pose a threat to any country,' Mr Li Zhaoxing, the Parliament spokesman and a former foreign minister, said in announcing the budget.
China began revamping the PLA - the former ragtag peasant force formed in 1927 by the Communist Party - in earnest after a troubled 1979 incursion into Vietnam, when the neighbours vied for influence over South-east Asia.
Besides conventional weaponry upgrades, the push also has led to China's fast-growing space programme and the testing of a satellite-killing weapon in 2007.
AFP
Premier's assertion follows news that China's defence budget will rise 12.7%
Beijing - Premier Wen Jiabao vowed yesterday that China would continue building a powerful military, one day after Beijing announced a return to double-digit percentage hikes in defence spending.
'Strengthening national defence and building a powerful people's army are important guarantees for safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests,' Mr Wen said in a speech opening the nation's legislature.
'We will energetically yet prudently press ahead with reform of national defence and the military,' he said.
A spokesman for the National People's Congress said on Friday that China's defence budget would rise 12.7 per cent for this year to 601.1 billion yuan (S$116 billion).
A multi-year trend of double- digit percentage increases was broken last year when the budget rose just 7.5 per cent.
China has upgraded the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities over the past three decades, developing advanced weaponry like its first stealth fighter jet, revealed in January.
The campaign has alarmed the United States, Japan and others in the region and raised fears that a more assertive China would seek to project its power overseas.
'It is an extremely high ratio for defence spending,' Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters on Friday.
'We cannot help worrying about what all the money is used for.'
[As the largest military force in the world, with vast land and sea borders, it is only logical that their military has to be adequately equipped. That the military has no upgraded their equipment for decades (previously) just means that they have a lot of catching up to do. As the second largest economy in the world, it only stands to reason that they have sufficient military might to protect their interest.
What the world is concerned about is probably the fact that the Chinese may not be constrained by ethical or ideological principles that has mostly guided the US as the sole superpower. ]
Yesterday, Mr Wen said 'great progress was made in the modernisation of national defence and the army' in the past five years.
China would continue to develop new weaponry and 'vigorously adapt our military training to the information age', he said.
The announced budget is widely believed to be far lower than actual spending.
Dr Willy Lam, a China analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the published military budget - which he noted was likely only one-third to half of actual spending - will be poured into next-generation equipment.
'The return to this double-digit PLA budget reflects the growing power of the PLA,' he told AFP. 'They are trying to close the gap with Russia and the United States.'
The PLA - the world's largest military force - is hugely secretive about its defence programmes, but insists its modernisation is aimed purely at defence of China's vast land and sea borders.
'This will not pose a threat to any country,' Mr Li Zhaoxing, the Parliament spokesman and a former foreign minister, said in announcing the budget.
China began revamping the PLA - the former ragtag peasant force formed in 1927 by the Communist Party - in earnest after a troubled 1979 incursion into Vietnam, when the neighbours vied for influence over South-east Asia.
Besides conventional weaponry upgrades, the push also has led to China's fast-growing space programme and the testing of a satellite-killing weapon in 2007.
AFP
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