Thursday 11 October 2018

How to read the news critically

You could almost hear the breathlessness. "Singapore is one of the 10 worst countries for efforts to reduce inequality"!

Notice the first giveaway in the headlines: It't not that SG is WORST in inequality. That is measured by the Gini Coefficient.

Note that Oxfam's beef with us (geddit? OX-fam? Beef? nemmind) is that we are worst for EFFORTS to reduce inequality.

I would be interested to know if a country with very low inequality, and so therefore would make very little efforts to reduce the already low inequality would fare better or worse than a country with very high actual inequality which has a lot of efforts to redistribute wealth.

Monday 1 October 2018

A brief comparison of race politics in Malaysia and Singapore:

[A post I started writing in August 2018]

A brief comparison of race politics in Malaysia and Singapore:

Circa 1965 "Malay Malaysia" from KL. "Malaysian Malaysia" from SG/PAP. Singapore evicted from the the Federation.
1970: President Yusof Ishak pass away. There would be no Malay President for Singapore over the next 47 years.
1971: Malaysia implements the New Economic Policy/Bumiputera policy.
1972: Gerakan, a predominantly Chinese political party that won the most seats in Penang, was brought into the Alliance, which later became the Barisan Nasional (BN), the ruling coalition of ethnic political parties. BN includes the MCA, MIC, and of course UMNO.

News from Malaysia - Lessons for Singapore

[This post was first written in June 2018. So it's a little dated. So, I've cleaned it up and here it is.]

GST 0%. Sales Tax coming back. And oh, brother can you spare a dime... or RM1trillion?

Riding on the euphoria from the GE, the new govt is asking Malaysians to donate to the Hope Fund.

Things going through my head...

1 - So instead of "Hope and Change", their slogan would be "Hope (you can spare some) change"?

2 - Revoke 6% GST, reintroduce Sales and Service Tax. And ask for donation. Give with the right, take with the left. Or give one drumstick, want a whole chicken in return.

3 - "A fool and is money are soon parted" - after many Singaporeans started pledging (at least on FB) to donate to the Hope fund.