Daily Discourse – Madoff Scam

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An early list of those who are thought to have lost out in Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50bn scam.

Fairfield Greenwich Group – $7.5bn (company statement)
Kingate Management – $3.5bn (Bloomberg)
Banco Santander – $3.1bn direct and indirect exposure (company statement)
Tremont Group – $3.3bn (Bloomberg)
Bank Medici – $2.2bn (company statement)
Ascot Partners LLC – $1.8bn (The Wall Street Journal)
Access International Advisors – $1.4bn (company statement)
Fortis – $1.4bn (company statement)
HSBC – $1bn (Financial Times)
Benbassat & Cie – $935m (Le Temps)
Union Bancaire Privee – $850m (Le Temps)
Royal Bank of Scotland – $594m (company statement)
Natixis – $533m in indirect exposure (company statement)
BNP Paribas – $468m (company statement)
BBVA – $404m (Reuters)
Fix Asset Management – $400m (company statement)
Man Group – $360m (company statement)
Reichmuth & Co – $330m (firm letter to clients)
Nomura Holdings – $302m (company statement)
Maxam Capital Management – $280m (The Wall Street Journal)
EIM Group – $230m (Le Temps)
UniCredit – $100m (company statement)

Societe Generale and UBS – confirmed insignificant exposure.

Deutsche Bank AG, Dresdner Bank AG & Commerzbank AG – declined to comment on the matter.

Amidst all that bad news of failing financial institutions, and news of mergers and acquistions, now this. Is there no end to the bad news surrounding the finance industry?

Is this a wake up call to everyone, that all that wealth is nothing but an illusion, nothing more than just numbers – a figure printed on a piece of paper and that it will get wiped out just like that? Just where will our money be safe?

50 billion (50,000,000,000) U.S. dollars. That’s roughly 73,800,000,000 Singapore dollars. And you know whenever I look at these staggering amounts, the pay of the Tali-PAP mini$ter$ is really ‘peanuts’. Just how the hell did he pull it off? And it’s not a new idea or some really ingenious scheme. It’s something that has been done before – a Ponzi Scheme – which is nothing more than a fraudulent investment scheme paying investors from money paid in by other investors rather than real profits.

It makes one wonder, just how and why it took so long for anyone to find out what this guy has done to bring him to justice? Did no one audit his books? Is it because there wasn’t enough regulation, or because the regulators were sleeping on their jobs?

Similarly, I also need to ask of the risk management people of Bear Sterns, Lehman Lamer brothers, AIG and the likes… You mean you shitheads never realized that the companies you are working for were over-exposed? Just what the hell have you fxxkers all been doing? Ahh.. I know. Just taking your pay and fat bonus while getting yourself drunk and jerked-off at a bordello near Wall Street, right?

As for this Madoff guy… even sentencing him to death would have been letting him off too lightly. There’s only one death he deserved, and that is DEATH BY UMGAWAH

But of course, no humans (nor animals) should be abused to perform the execution. I personally think the Japanese should specifically design a machine for this purpose but the Germans will manufacture it. On top of that, I would like the honor to throw the switch of this thing during the execution.

Moment of the year:


Shoes thrown at George ‘Warmonger’ Bush during a press conference in Iraq.

Recommended Reads:
Nocturne: Defence of the Faith*
Nocturne: Indiscriminate Incrimination*
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Another “Duh” Moment


Warning: * denotes blog contains some graphical details which might be considered ‘Not Safe For Work’ [NSFW] and self-righteous moralists please refrain from clicking.

History Trivial:
講到慈禧之過，隨口算來包括導致甲午戰敗，撲滅戊戌變法，用義和團引來八國聯軍等等，似乎真有點罄竹難書；但若論其功，則重用漢臣，開辦洋務運動，奠立中國近代化工業基礎，造就同治中興氣象，以新式教育取代科舉，禁止婦女纏足等，倒也頗有可書之處。
而慈禧的家人除了襲「承恩公」的一個虛爵之外，並無他人能干涉朝政，在封建皇權時代，尤屬難得。

Daily Discourse – Discrimination

“Seems you are ok with discrimination as long as you are not the target.”

This is the allegation leveled against me in a comment to my previous post. And I am really sick of such comments.

For starters, let’s talk about discrimination. These are several types of discrimination which I know of:

  1. racial – e.g. against the African Americans back in the U.S. in the 60s, the Jews in Nazi Germany and the Chinese in the early 20th century;

  2. gender – e.g. females denied the right to vote, glass ceiling for female employees in organisations, jobs and promotion given in priority to males, or expecting sexual favors from a female employee;

  3. caste – e.g. the untouchables in India;

  4. age – e.g. rejecting a job applicant solely because of his age;

  5. disability – e.g. refusal to render to a person a medical aid because of his disability;

  6. religion – e.g. refusal to hire a person because of his religious beliefs;

  7. language – e.g. to disgrace the people speaking a certain dialect, such as those from Ryukyu Islands in early 20th Century Japan; and

  8. reverse – in my opinion, a fine example would be the Woman’s Charter of Singapore, which originally was used to protect the disadvantaged (i.e. lower educated, unemployed) women – usually home-makers – in the early days of post-colonial Singapore from abusive husbands. Sadly, it has become more of a bane to the modern man today.

Gender, age, disability, language and religion are also usually seen as a part of employment discrimination. That is why these days consultants advices interviewers never to ask questions related to them to avoid getting the company sued by the interviewee.


However, there is also another kind of discrimination – perceived discrimination. And it reminds me of an ex-colleague, who is in the opinion that our head of department looks down on him. It doesn’t matter that the real issue was the attitude and the lack of interest he displays towards his work. In the end he deliberately not do the things which our boss would consider him a good worker and a team player, and that goes onward to reinforce the boss continual dislike of him and his working attitude.

And so when I looked at the allegation leveled against me, I asked myself if there is any real discrimination in place against homosexual people, or is it all perceived as such. Are homosexuals in Singapore denied the right to vote? Are they denied the use of certain public services like health care or the buses? Are they getting thrown out of restaurants? Or are they denied employment even when they are more than qualified for the job?

Fortunately, I haven’t heard of such blatant acts of discrimination in Singapore. But the first thing that come to mind is Section 377A of the Penal Code, which I believe was necessary to protect the populace from certain sexual predators. However, before anyone screams about me drawing comparisons between male homosexuals and sexual predators, don’t put words in my mouth and consider this analogy: A prostitute may dress scantily, but is everyone who dress scantily a prostitute?

Then, there is also the ‘302’ classification and the straight downgrade of homosexuals to PES C in the army. I was reminded of this by fellow blogger Michael Cheng [aka Botak Cheng]. Personally, I have heard about incidents where those who are allegedly classified as such were bullied in camp by fellow soldiers. I am not sure if those classified as such are upset, but I do not see nor really understand the reason to the segregation. If homosexuals do not oppose those duties, then put them on duty like the rest of the men, until they do something against military regulations.

Anyway, parallel is continually being drawn in the U.S. between the homosexual community with that of the movement against discrimination of African American in the 1960s. But a quick check with a dozen of my friends who happens to be online in Windows Live Messenger showed that most cannot name any discrimination against homosexual here in Singapore. In fact, only 2 out of the dozen people I asked pointed me to this link to get myself duly informed.

Now, while I may oppose them, I have no issues with the homosexual community’s efforts to deal with the items listed on the Wiki page. But what has that got anything to do with DBS tie-in with FOTF? It was pretty obvious to me that it is nothing more than the fight against FOTF U.S. spilling over to FOTF Singapore. Has this ‘victory’ done anything to improve the situation of the homosexual community here in Singapore?

I won’t be surprised that in the near future, there is this opinion that all of these action groups are nothing more than small pompous groups presuming to speak for a larger community. In fact, I am in the opinion that the homosexual community by and large did not even give these ‘loud mouths’ the authority to speak on their behalf, nor are they very interested in the agenda.

It maybe possible these groups will raise the profile of those who claims to speak for the community, but it is doubtful it would have any real effects for the plight of the community or bring about any positive action. In fact, I am not even surprised if it actually galvanises the opposition.

To put it in the words of my friend, “Some people do nothing until they are called the enemy.”

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Money Saving Tip #2
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur -Signs of our times #4
Endoh’s Dungeon: Do you represent me… really?
Isaiahc: Seven Things to Love About WordPress 2.7

Daily Discourse – DBS & FOTF

I read with a little annoyance the following news [see below]:

Online campaign leads to rethink at DBS
Siow Li Sen
Fri, Dec 05, 2008
The Business Times

DBS Bank has removed all references to Focus On The Family (FOTF) in its advertising, after its credit card promotion supporting the evangelical Christian organisation provoked some angry reactions.

Since the bank’s Nov 13 credit card promotion where DBS said that it would donate money to FOTF, ‘a charity dedicated to helping children and families thrive’, members of the gay and lesbian community have called for a boycott of the bank.

FOTF in Singapore is an affiliate of a US-based organisation of the same name founded in 1977 by evangelical Christian James Dobson who campaigns against gay rights.

Last month, FOTF in the US retrenched some 200 staff after it spent US$600,000 to defeat marriage equality in California. Mr Dobson has also railed against US President-elect Barack Obama, who has countered that Mr Dobson ‘makes things up’.

DBS spokeswoman Karen Ngui said that it was never the intention of the bank to alienate any particular group. ‘DBS supports children and learning in Asia . . . it’s the cause that we are supporting and not FOTF, and or what it stands for,’ she said.

She added that DBS believes in diversity and inclusion.

‘We have since removed all references to FOTF in our advertising . . . however, we still support the cause . . . and thus will be contributing a small amount to their New Learning Centre for children with learning disabilities, due to be opened in March 2009.’

The bank’s earlier move had sparked an online campaign. Jean Chong, a gay activist with People Like Us, said that to date, 1,063 people, including non-gays, had signed up with a Facebook group attacking the bank’s support for an FOTF cause.

While some gay activists concede that DBS may not have known about the anti-gay agenda of FOTF, they felt that it still should not give to the charity because the donation could indirectly benefit its cause.

‘It is my view that unfortunately, DBS did not realise that FOTF has a lot of baggage. It is also unclear how by funding one part of an organisation’s activities, how much you also indirectly help another of its activities because money is fungible,’ said Alex Au, People Like Us gay activist.

Ms Ngui has said that its credit card team checked on FOTF and proceeded as they are endorsed by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and National Council of Social Service (NCSS). ‘Going forward, the bank will conduct more extensive background checks,’ she said.

Why does it annoy me? First of all, it apparently doesn’t matter what the objective of the campaign was. It doesn’t matter FOTF is supporting a children and learning project. All that mattered to some group of people is this: FOTF was anti-homosexual.

By the same way they attempt public opinion against DBS’ association with FOTP, I wondered whether they are even aware that it also can used to ‘show’ homosexuals are anti-community? I am quite amused to see how they shot themselves in the foot, by going against a pro-community action.

Now that this has worked to cow DBS, I won’t be surprise that very soon, churches and the Christian community will have a hard time to work with secular organizations for community projects and activities, because such projects and activities are going to get boycott by ‘many in the [homosexual] community who have expressed outrage over’ the association.

In fact, I won’t be surprised that one day, when there’s a Christian bleeding to death – with a crucifix hanging obviously around his neck – homosexuals will just walk by and let him die, and would justify it because the dying man is anti-homosexual. After all, why aid a guy who is well, with the anti-homosexual groups? It doesn’t matter that it is my belief that most Christians would render aid to a homosexual in need.

Where, is such senseless reverse discrimination, going to lead us?

As a Christian, I can perfectly leave homosexuals alone and let them do whatever they want behind close doors, and even ignore what I see in public. As to how I personally felt about it, the leaders of the Church have already made their statement clear and I do not need to repeat it here. My stand has always been this: God is the ultimate moral judge and I do not pretend to speak His Judgement.

Beyond that, I would even champion for universal suffrage, health care, job opportunities for them if I see any discrimination in any of those areas in spite of my faith in Jesus Christ. But I will not stand for any form of reverse discrimination against my community as a matter of faith and differing views on morality.

And according to what I have read, Focus on the Family (FOTF) is also a voluntary welfare organisation (VWO) endorsed by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. So, shouldn’t the ministry, and by extension the government gahmen of the Republic of Singapore, be boycotted by the homosexual community as well?

So, all homosexuals should quit their jobs in the civil service now because our gahmen is an evil organisation promoting an anti-gay agenda! If not, take what you already have and keep it, and stop agitating for more.

Enough, is enough already.

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Money Saving Tip #1
Endoh: Boycott DBS for being anti-family?


Addendum: Comment section for this post has been closed. Further comments in other parts of this blog on this issue will be indiscriminately deleted.

Daily Discourse – Priority to the Local Worker

3 comments

This must have been the most pleasing thing that Lim Swee Say Shee Shee has said [see below], even though I have said this back in Oct 24. The only difference is that I am a nobody and I ain’t paid a million. Maybe they ought to fire him and put me on his job for half the pay.

Labour chief urges employers to give priority to local workers
Channel NewsAsia – Friday, December 5

SINGAPORE: It may make more business sense to let go of foreign rank—and—file workers rather than Singaporean workers if retrenchment is unavoidable, said Labour chief Lim Swee Say at the Singapore Tripartism Forum on Thursday.

The secretary—general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said: “We’re talking about rank—and—file workers who are, by and large, replaceable. Our message is — Give priority to the local workers. Not only will you help us minimise unemployment in Singapore, but more importantly, it makes business sense for your company.”

Mr Lim said if Singaporeans are laid off, companies may find it tough to re—employ them when the economy improves because they will be sought after by companies which must fulfil a quota of local talent first, before they can hire foreign ones.

At the same time, foreign workers are necessary for companies to keep costs down and to avoid a scenario whereby local firms choose to relocate overseas.

Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong related a conversation he had with a company head.

“If he were asked to employ only Singaporeans, his costs would have gone up and he would have had no choice but to shift the whole company out of Singapore to China,” said Mr Gan.

A recent survey of employers showed that about 60 per cent of them were freezing headcount and a few planned to retrench workers.

Stephen Lee, president of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), said: “Many companies choose to do the easier one first — freeze hiring. And for those who have left by natural attrition, they don’t replace. The next step is non—renewal of contracts and that will mostly affect foreign workers.”

The labour movement stressed that retrenchment should be the last resort. And despite the current economic gloom, employers and employees should help one another and plan tactics carefully so that Singapore can rebound quickly, once the economic downturn is over.

— CNA/so

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, one can figure out with a rat’s ass the effect of this is going to be negligible!

First of all, foreign companies may use this excuse to just leave Singapore for good, be it to set up at a new place (no matter how unlikely). Alternatively, they just wind down their operations here in Singapore to so-call ‘concentrate on its core competencies’. And this appears to be the fate the buyer has installed for my current employer once the acquisition is complete …

Secondly, PRs don’t count towards to quota which companies need to maintain to keep a foreign worker. So technically, a company can still retrench a Singaporeans and keep the job for a PR, who in essence is nothing more than just a foreigner.

So, Lim Shee Shee can say whatever he wants and it is unlikely that it’s going to have a great effect in helping some of us keep our jobs anyway. And it’s not like the Tali-PAP ever really give a shit whether we have a job anyway. After all, they’ll just blame us for not being qualified enough to get employed.

In simpler words, when there’s a problem it’s always our own fault!

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Signs of Our Times #3

Trivial:
On June 22, 1941, Soviet archaeologists working in the Samarkand crypt opened the sarcophagus to study the body of Timur (Tamerlane) and found the inscription: “Whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I.” Hours later, Hitler invaded Russia. Five weeks after the great Emir was re-interred in 1942, the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad.

Random Discourse – The Concept of ‘Wa’

2 comments

Singapore talks much about a gracious society – such as giving up seats to old people and pregnant ladies, letting people first alight from a train before boarding, allowing people to exit a lift first before entering and standing on one side of the escalator.

I think Singapore misses the point. What we need to be is not a gracious society but a harmonious society [和谐社会]. Because it is my considered opinion that in a harmonious society, everyone would be necessarily gracious. That brings me to the Japanese concept of ‘Wa’ [和], and I did a little wee bit of reading up on that.

Wa – The most valued principle still alive in Japanese society today is the concept of ‘wa’, or ‘harmony’. The preservation of social harmony dates back to the first constitution in 604 AD and the teamwork needed when living and working on collective farms. In business terms, ‘wa’ is reflected in the avoidance of self-assertion and individualism and the preservation of good relationships despite differences in opinion. When doing business with the Japanese it is also important to remember the affect of ‘wa’ on many patterns of Japanese behaviour, in particular their indirect expression of ‘no’. [1]

~ ~ ~

To much of the world, however, the notion of an immutable self is considered rather odd. In Japanese society, for example, acting untrue to one’s inner beliefs is not only accepted but is it’s own moral virtue. The most important of all Japanese social values is ‘wa’, or harmony. If achieving wa requires a bit of play-acting, then so be it. The Japanese distinguish between ‘honne’ – one’s true feelings – and ‘tatemai’ – the face one wears in public. When your honne is at odds with the harmony of the group, a mature, virtuous person is expected to rise above his or her own selfish feelings and, for the welfare of the majority, put on a good face. To ‘stick up for what you stand for’ is not a Japanese ideal. Most Japanese understand there’s a difference between this public play-acting and reality, but nearly everyone is agreed upon its importance. In other words, what Americans may perceive as hypocritical, dishonest behavior is not only tolerated in Japan, but esteemed as good citizenship. [2]

However, my vision of a harmonious society and my concept of ‘Wa’ is inspired by the Japanese but not exactly the same. After all, we are not Japanese.

In my concept, there is a individual / personal ‘Wa’ and a social / collective ‘Wa’. When one becomes oblivious to the world around them, someone else’s personal ‘Wa’ will inevitably be disrupted. For e.g. when a inconsiderate moron blasts music from his walkman phone in the cabin of an MRT train, the few people in the vicinity might become upset. Even though there is no real physical intrusion to their personal space to really upset them, they simply might not like the music and their individual ‘Wa’ is thus disrupted. These people may suffer in silence and just fume inside. But that will be the extent of the disruption if they get over it.

However, one or more of these people may then raise a ruckus by confronting the inconsiderate moron who insists that it is his personal right to listen to whatever music he likes because it’s a freedom of expression. It will result in a fight – be in verbal or physical – which will result in the further disruption of the collective ‘Wa’ of all the other passengers in the same cabin. The ‘Wa’ of some MRT staff may also be disrupted and the police may thus be called it to restore some order – the real world extension of the collective ‘Wa’.

Alternatively, the fuming person may write an angry post on an online forum or to the newspaper which result in more like-minded people getting angry, and there might now be calls for punitive action by these unhappy individuals – more regulations or laws that none of us would like.

The example above is simple to show that how disrupted individual ‘Wa’ may also cause a ripple-effect disruption to the collective‘Wa’. We live on an island with an increasing population and thus a decrease in personal space. Yet, most of us tolerate the shrinkage of our physical personal space as long as the last bastion of that – i.e. our personal ‘Wa’ – is not disrupted. While each of us may have a different tolerance level and thus a different opinion of what we would consider a disruption of our personal ‘Wa’, what we need to do is first avoid doing to others the things which will upset our own personal ‘Wa’. Once we are set doing that, the next thing will be to stop doing the things that disrupt the collective ‘Wa’. Usually such things are just socially unacceptable actions like:

  • blasting your walkman phone in the MRT;

  • taking forever to answer your mobile phone ringing with super loud and irritating ring tones;

  • talking loudly over the mobile phone in the cinema in the middle of a movie;

  • doing multiple transactions on an ATM despite the queue;

  • walking at crawling speed or stopping abruptly in a congested / narrow passageway;

  • walking in a line abreast in a congested / narrow passageway;

  • slowing down on the expressway to look at an accident / breakdown vehicle;

  • putting your knees on the back of someone else’s chair and rock it;

  • putting your feet onto the seat facing you on the bus;

  • smoking in the lift; or

  • even smoking in the next toilet cubicle while you shit.

(Basically, you read about these things on the newspaper, online forums and even blogs all the time!)


In summary, it is futile to promote gracious living when none understands what is achieved with that. What we need to promote is harmonious living – i.e. promote personal behaviour with social responsibility. Once the individual ‘Wa’ of every individual is less disrupted, it will inevitably result in less disruption to the collective ‘Wa’.

Simply put, it is my considered opinion that when one first consider the consequences of his actions and avoid disrupting THE ‘Wa’, then gracious behaviour would inevitably result. You will not have morons walking in a line abreast in a narrow passageway, or morons standing still on the walking side of the escalator anymore.

Comics:

Recommended Reads
Feed Me to the Fish: Why So Much Contempt?
Cobalt Paladin: Diary of an Entrepreneur – Signs Of Our Times #2

Smartphone: Palm Treo Pro

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