Author: CheckW

US stock markets rose to historical highs this week. One will be hard-pressed to realize that we are still in the midst of a pandemic though. Markets are forecasting months ahead, where things could possibly go back to the good old times pre-Covid.

It was a broad-based rise in the overall American indices where many grasp the good news that vaccination is progressing well and that the US might go back to normal by the fourth of July, Independence Day. Biden continues to under-promise and then over-delivering to manage expectations. Things are starting to look rosy again as restaurants begin to open and people are travelling again.

The fact remains that central banks had been printing like there is no tomorrow for the last few years and the pandemic had really turbocharged the process further. With economies collapsing spectacularly last Mar when the virus began its global onslaught, governments had no choice but to take out the bazookas to save their fragile countries. Lockdowns and overstretched medical facilities were a disaster recipe for economic destruction.

No one knew at that time what would happen next during this 1 in 100 years event where every human being in the world is affected. Never in our lifetimes have we experience such a situation that every living soul on earth is faced with the same issue at the same time. All of us were like the rabbits facing an oncoming truck with its high beam shining into our eyes. We all muddled through the many months wondering what and when could the end game be in this evolving apocalypse.

Things began to look brighter in Dec when the vaccines breakthrough happened. 5 months into the global vaccination roll-out, one can still see the difficult road ahead as the disparities between the have and have-not countries become even more apparent. As the world adapts to the next phase of the virus fight, new challenges will arise.

Meanwhile, the flood of liquidity unleashed by the central banks continue to flush into all asset classes. Fiat money losses its value in an ever-accelerating momentum as investors chase assets as a means to preserve their personal store of value. All traditional asset classes like stocks and property surged to new historical highs with no pullback in sight.

As investors run out of places to sell fiat currencies for asset preservation reasons, newer asset classes are starting to emerge and go mainstream. Cryptocurrencies are beginning to hoard the limelight in recent months. While many still do not have a vague idea of what it is, various corporations have started to jump in. Tesla, Square and others have decided to accept them and make it legal tender.

The rise in Bitcoin, Etherum and XRP prices had made many early adopter geeks rich beyond their imagination. In turn, this has sparked a rise in a new asset class, which is a derivative of the cryptos. NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) that used to be an exotic concept just a few months ago is starting to develop into a new asset class for investors to park their wealth.

I still have a hard time trying to wrap my head onto this NFT phenomenon. As long as there is a demand for such products, buyers and sellers will complete transactions however unbelievable the end product is. It may be so intangible that it blows our mind on why there is value in a traditional sense. But as long as someone perceives a present and possible future value, then there is a meeting of minds.

Take for example the purchase of game tokens to play online games. The developer creates a virtual world for gamers to participate in and can issue unlimited game credits for exchange with fiat currencies. These “gold” token credits can be exchanged for virtual products to enhance the gamer’s play experience. This has already been happening for many years. Willing buyers and sellers gather to create demand and supply. Outsiders may not understand the economics and purpose of the tokens but the insiders really don’t care about non-gamers opinion anyway.

NFTs in a way is another version of the above. We now have a new class of people who have become super-rich thanks to the rise of crypto prices. They do not spend their wealth in a way like what normal people do. They prefer to push the boundaries and seek a newly created asset class to participate in. Metakovan buying an NFT from an unknown like Beeple for $69 million is one such example. Many are starting to jump onto the bandwagon to seek more NFTs to spend their newfound wealth in ways unimaginable just a year ago just to get bragging rights.

Asset bubbles are coming up everywhere and look like they are bursting soon. But yet they become even bigger over time. Newer ones are now being created as a pressure outlet from the continuous and tremendous flows of fiat currencies heading our way. It has been more than 13 years of asset inflation since the beginning of the 2008 GFC but we see no end in sight. I cannot think of any asset class that had not appreciated over this time at all.

As part of my life long journey, I had recently become a full-time student again. I enrolled on a full government-subsidized SGUnited 6 months course to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) via IBM. I am reaching my 2 months milestone next week and am happy to report that I have learnt new things like Enterprise Design Thinking and Cloud Computing. While they are more of a general overview of concepts and do not go too deep technically, it nevertheless was a refreshing new learning experience for me.

To date, our starting class of 21 students had bonded via the online Zoom classes and projects. 2 have dropped out so far due to family commitments and job opportunities. I expect more to drop off into the next 4 months as the job market is improving this year plus a tighter labour market for IT professionals due to the pandemic travel restrictions.

While I am not really attracted to wanting to get a full-time job at the end of the course, learning more about AI is my main motivation. With the Myanmar situation looking to worsen, my consultancy job which I had over the last 3 years seems to be over soon. I would have more time on my hands to look for things to occupy my time this year. I should never say no to what may fall on my lap by the time I complete this course in Aug and to keep an open mind. Life has a strange way to hand you new opportunities when you least expect them. When a door closes behind you, many more will open in front of you.

A good friend suddenly experienced a stroke earlier this week. Thankfully he had recovered fast and was discharged 2 days ago. We all should count our blessings and be thankful for what the Big Man above has given us. I continue to aim to stay happy and healthy into my 2nd half time.

I started the week on Sunday by having a Sunday family lunch to celebrate my Dad’s 92nd birthday. We had some Tim Sum and dishes at a familiar restaurant near his home. Both my parents have taken their first shots of the Pfizer vaccine a few weeks ago and took the 2nd one this week without much incident.

I have always been interested in cooking and the appreciation of good food since I was young. When I was little, I loved to hang out in the kitchen to watch my mum cook and to join her for her morning wet market shopping to see all the fresh produce that was displayed.

After I started my career and had better financial means, I was able to eat at the finer restaurants and to observe the skills of the chefs. My taste palate improved over time with the introduction of wines and travels to food capitals of the world like New York/San Francisco, London, Paris and places in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastian) and Italy (Rome, Venice, Positano and Sicily). I got to experience the many Michelin stars chefs that served their unique creations in many degustation meals.

During those times, we had to travel outside S’pore to experience fine dining as the country was mainly known for good and cheap hawker food plus some traditional cuisines. In the 1980s time, we were known as a dull place of hardworking people which no one would have spared a second thought to want to come here for a visit or a vacation. Things only started to change after 2000. This was one of the reasons why:

My friend reminded me last Sunday of a fine dining movie that just began airing on Netflix. It was of interest to us because of a group dinner we had there in 2010. This was the story of Andre Chiang and his rise to fame in S’pore over the 8 years where he obtained 2 Michelin stars. The movie is called “Andre and his olive tree” and it was more than 2 years in the making.

Andre is a passionate and compulsive chef who had honed his culinary skills via the school of hard knocks, starting from right at the bottom at a well known Paris restaurant peeling potatoes and living in a barn. He became a perfectionist chef that believes in doing the same thing 10,000 times to get it right all the time.

Over time, he had condensed his work into 8 elements or themes which he uses as the beginning point of creating a degustation menu for diners. The 8 elements are:

1. Pure

2. Salt

3. Artisan

4. South

5. Texture

6. Unique

7. Memory

8. Terroir

From these 8 elements, his team will create multiple individual dishes (almost 200). This serves as an internal catalogue for the new season every year. They also carefully track each diner’s past menu eaten at the restaurant to ensure that repeat customers will never eat the same thing while getting to enjoy new dishes every time they visit. This high standard of service and dedication earned them a well deserved 2 Michelin stars when the food guide started to rate S’pore restaurants in 2016.

I had eaten at Andre twice. The first time was when they just opened in late Oct 2010. I planned and booked the dinner months in advance for a 03 Nov date. I gathered a group of good friends I had known during my Citibank days and asked for the biggest table they had. They had one table on the 1st floor which could accommodate 8 persons. The movie mentioned that this particular table was made from a single piece of wood. It was so big that they had to slip it in through the ground floor windows before assembling it. We were told that we were the first group to eat at that table for dinner as the restaurant had just opened.

That was a most pleasant evening for us. We had a fantastic dinner with a few bottles of fine wines. Andre was there to introduce himself. He was so friendly and accommodating. He allowed us to visit his kitchen and then to tour his 3rd-floor office where he showed us his prized complete collection of the red Michelin guide books. It was a really memorable evening that we still speak about till today. He gamely took a group photo with us too at the end of the private tour 🙂 After that dinner, I had to go back again and I brought my wife for a celebratory meal the next time.

Thanks to Andre, S’pore’s profile as a fine food city was elevated over the almost 8 years they had operated. People now come to the island city knowing that they can dine at top-rated restaurants that are recognized on the world stage.

There was a very moving moment in the movie where Andre dropped the big bomb on the evening of the restaurant’s anniversary on 10 Oct 2017. It was also his wedding anniversary too. He announced that he would close Andre on 15 Feb 2018. The last service will be on Valentine’s day, 14 Feb. The shock and weight of the news were overpowering to all his staff, especially his wife.

He had explained that he had achieved all that he has wanted for this restaurant and that he will return the Michelin stars. The emotional tension was so great that I teared too. Reflecting on that moment, I now understand his motivation. To close at the high was the way to go. To force a retirement to recharge himself for the next adventure in his life journey. It is like a halftime reckoning and I really admire his bravery and conviction.

His strong-mindedness and single focus will power to channel all his efforts to his food and then to walk away at the peak of his success – that is so empowering and heroic. He knew that he wanted to move on to the next stage of his life and was brave enough to face the uncertain future ahead. I wished I could have been like him in 2012 and moved on from the peak of my career before I was retrenched.

I highly recommend this movie to everyone even if food is not your passion. It is the human side of the story that is so compelling to watch, just like a similar movie I highly recommend too – Alpha Go the Movie. You go in with low expectations and at the end, the movie overwhelms you and you get so much more out of the film than you ever expected. Lifelong learning lessons about how to navigate your journey of life.

On Thursday, my appointment to receive my first Pfizer vaccine shot finally arrived. The process was quite smooth at the community centre and I had to be observed for 30 minutes after the injection. During the night, my arm started to feel sore and it got worst the next day. I felt tired too, so I took a walk instead of doing my daily run. By the second day, most of the aches had disappeared.

I am glad to have received the vaccine now for peace of mind. The next one will be in 3 weeks time and I understand that most people will feel soreness and tiredness as well. We are slowly inching our way back to normalcy after more than a year of this pandemic. There is light at the end of the tunnel now.

As part of my halftime lifelong continuous learning journey, I have recently become a full-time student again.

My learning journey started in 2017 after I left my last banking job. I started to sign up for Skillsfuture courses which were heavily subsidized by the government for citizens, especially mid-career people like me. Over the next 3 years, I took a whole variety of courses that interest me. They include wines, aquaponics, reading financial statements, overseas learning trips to Hangzhou to learn about e-Retailing from Alibaba and to Seoul for Blockchain. My most ambitious one was getting a Specialist Diploma in Business Analytics. It was a 12 months course with a Polytechnic, attending night classes 5 times a month. There was even a nice graduation ceremony at the end where we wore our gowns to go up to the stage to receive our certification.

Overall, I guess I might have received more than $20k+ of government subsidies to date. As long as you are a citizen who is above 40 years old, these courses were subsidized to the tune of 90%. Best of all, there was no limit to it too.

Then Covid19 arrived in 2020 and my learning journey came to a standstill. While I could still do mainly MOOC online courses, most were not comprehensive. With the mounting job losses due to the virus, a new Skillsfuture initiative called SGUnited was created. It was a government joint venture with prominent companies to develop a 6 to 9 months training program for out of work citizens who wish to pivot to a new and promising industry. It was heavily subsidized and even provided a student allowance for the participants.

I discovered this IBM SGUnited program in late 2020. It had 2 tracks: Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity. It costs $20K which was subsidized up to 19.5k and we could use our Skillsfuture funding to pay for the balance of $500. On top of it all, students will receive $1.5k/month as an allowance. https://webibmcourse.mybluemix.net/SGUnitedProgramme

I did not register for it immediately as I had some upcoming commitments then, hence I introduced it to 2 friends who signed up. Then at the beginning of 2021, things changed for me and I decided to apply for it. The course was for 6 months and it was conducted online over live Zoom classes except for periodic exams. It has 5 modules to complete and we do have group projects to complete. IBM certificates will also be earned along the way which we could attach to our LinkedIn profiles too. My course finally started on 22 Feb.

Over the last 2 weeks, I was into my 3rd AI module and the topic was Cloud Computing. While it is quite a technical subject, it provided me with a brief overview of how things work on the cloud which I found very fascinating.

Over the last 15+ years, as mobiles become so critical to our daily lives, I have heard about the movement of many things to the cloud and the term IoT (Internet of Things). Even software, games and apps are all supported via the cloud nowadays. It is inevitable that there will be privacy concerns as all our data is stored wirelessly in data centres around the world. Video streaming like Netflix and live Zoom calls are already a given.

What I did not know about cloud was how it all worked in the background. With 4G and 1GB broadband speeds, there was a lot of cloud computing power that is going on to make many things work. How are they scalable and is security a big concern? How can they work 24/7 and deploy patches without interrupting the UX (User Experience)?

My questions were answered over the past 2 weeks as I learned how things are being done nowadays in cloud technology. New terms about how data is stored in the cloud via containers and Kubernetes infrastructure, SQL versus NoSQL, types of clouds (public, private and hybrid) and services offered (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS). The breaking up of an application into smaller bite-size components call microservices.

How all the apps communicate with each over via API (Application Programming Interfaces) to make the microservices work seamlessly and highly scalable on demand. The addition of security features to the API further enhance the robustness of the integrity of the cloud architecture. These include encryption process (tokens and keys) which provides many levels of secured handoffs which makes it harder if not impossible for hackers to infiltrate and hijack the user experience.

I now understand why we have the 2FA (2-factor authentication) process for logging into bank websites and how they are more secure. We first use an ID and password to get in at the first level, then in the background, the app hands off to the next level to request for an email or to use Google Authenticator to generate another signoff code to log in. The various APIs with encryption capabilities communicate with each other in the background. If your phone has a face recognition sign-on, that would also be another security layer added to the sign-in process.

Most of these technology enhancements were only made just over the last few years. With the confluence of technological advancements, the scalability and speed of adaptation of the cloud are amazing now. Coupled with AI development and big data, anything is possible. The development of a cloud project is also enhanced via a DevOps process with zero downtime deployment, improving the end to end process to days instead of months.

I remember the good old days where the IT team had to burn countless weekends to deploy a new version of a system, then pray and hope it works on Monday morning. Each stand-alone PC then also needed to be shut down and rebooted to upgrade its software using disks.

With the setting up of everything in the cloud now and the ability to slice apps into micro bits while having strong security features, the cost goes down dramatically while efficiency shoots through the roof. Down time is also a thing of the past now as developers can simultaneously run and test manageable portions of the app in real time and deploy them seamlessly into production to maintain high UX.

It has been indeed a fruitful 2 weeks of learning experience for me as I dive deep into this topic of cloud computing. I discovered new things about a subject which I had no prior knowledge about and feel so much more enlightened now 🙂

It has been once in a lifetime year that we have witnessed. Each and every human being on Planet Earth had been through a traumatic experience which only the Marvel movie plots could have conceived. An invisible enemy had attacked the world with its deadly hands.

It’s really unbelievable that we had survived a 1 in a 100 years event that no one could have dreamt about but only read in science fiction books. The fear was so complete that country by country shut down their borders and death rates spiral out of control. The mix of Covidiots refusing to mask up or to recognize a pandemic when they see one resulted in more lemmings being sent off the cliff. Stupidity has no cure if the denial of reality is absolute.

We sat in amazement as lockdowns become a way of life, wondering when will we be able to be let outside again. Flight travel went to almost zero overnight and companies started to collapse industry by industry. It was as if the apocalypse Thanos had the world by the balls and we were at the mercy of Mother Nature. Days and months went by as the nightmare unfolded before us. The new norm seemed so alien to everyone but we all adapted quickly. Zoom calls and working from home (WFH) became the status quo. How fast we all forgot about the old norm.

Wave after wave of the virus hit us. No one knew how this story would end. Just when we thought things improved, our human nature got the better of us and a new wave was created. Each big holiday break was a primer for a new breakout a few weeks later. We just could not break the stranglehold on humankind.

Then the news of rapid vaccine development gave us hope. The vaccination rollouts started to happen by Dec and 4 months later, the light at the end of the tunnel looks nearer. It is the only solution we have and getting to herd immunity is the way to break the pandemic cycle.

As I began tracking this virus via my blog, the many ups and downs were written to help me reflect on them again in the future. The fact that I even managed to go overseas to the UK for a month, arrived back home safely for a 14 days hotel quarantine was an amazing feat as I look back.

I would like to count all my blessings again, for how this had turned out for me so far. When I read about what many have gone through during this time, I cannot help but feel so lucky that I had managed to escape most of the hardships of this virus.

Being a citizen of S’pore is one of the most fortunate things that could have happened to me. The way the government systematically handle the situation and attacked each problem as they met them head-on is to be greatly admired. Just this week, Bloomberg identified S’pore as the 2nd most Covid resilience countries in the world!

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/?cmpid=BBD032521_CORONAVIRUS&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210325&utm_campaign=coronavirus&sref=TCJIUe33

I am happy that all my family members are still safe and healthy. My elders had started their vaccine shots and it was without incidents. I have just booked my appointments for the 2 shots today for the month of Apr as the vaccination program was just opened to my age group (45-59). Getting herd immunity by Jun is possible now as the country had already acquired sufficient supplies for the whole population.

As I reflect on the last 1 year, I am surprised that it had passed by so fast but yet when we were in the midst of it, time stood still and every day crawled along and seemed endless. We had to keep to a new routine to remain sane. Mental health is a topic that has been given much more attention now than a year ago.

Are vaccines the way out of the rabbit hole? How long can it lasts and do we need booster shots? Can we mix them for a higher protection effect? How long will it take for the rest of the world to achieve herd immunity? These are still some of the unanswered questions but at least they are much less scary than the ones were had last year, where no one had the answers to anything except to see the climbing cases and mortality rates.

I count my blessings again, praying for the less fortunate and wishing them well. May we weather 2021 much better than 2020. Looking towards normalcy soon, hopefully into the 2nd half of this year!

After the last 12 months of pushing hate speech and scapegoating the Asian American for the COVID pandemic, the cold massacre of 8 people was a rude wake-up call to all Americans this week.

I really could never understand American politics under the orange moron which had aimed to divide to encourage racist rhetoric to achieve political gains at all expense. Where were the adults in the room? Didn’t everyone realized that the country was made up of and built by immigrants for hundreds of years? Only the native Indians can claim to be the true indigenous people of America and yet they are regularly discriminated against too.

Calling people names via Twitter and belittling other races became the norm for a country that used to welcome immigrants with open arms. It was so sad for an outsider like me to see a country degenerate into a 3rd world country spurting xenophobia like it is perfectly OK to spit on others that do not look like you.

Thank goodness Biden is now in charge, but the damage has already been done. Many of the same idiots that supported the orange one are still around trying to cripple minority voter rights and continue to encourage lies and conspiracies. When is Fake News and Alternate Reality going to end?

This week has been a wake-up call to all Asian American to stand up to say that enough is enough, that they will not stand for more BS anymore. #BLM was a movement that started last year which was also long overdue after so many years of racial undertones. Dr King’s message more than 50 years ago seems to sound like it was just yesterday, that nothing had changed at all.

In a diverse culture like the US where the white population is feeling diminished, are they lashing out in defence? Contrast that with the UK, where after hundreds of years of colonization, its population is now filled with Asians of all colours. Just turn on the TV and you will see a big representation of them as broadcasters and news presenters. Even the politicians are already multi-generation British Asians.

This is a unique Western world situation where Asians have migrated over from the East to more developed countries for many many years. We do not see this today in Asian countries except perhaps only in S’pore with its multi-racial population. Most Asian countries still have a largely homogeneous majority population with similar characteristics, like Japan, China and Indonesia.

I hope that this recent incident would make Americans question themselves more and temper down on their superiority complex, to listen to the world instead of continuing their “We are the best!” attitude. This looks like a pipe dream after this week’s first US-China summit in Alaska, where a pissed off China told the Americans that they are the champions of cyberattacks. Even after their own intelligence report this week that contradicted the previous administration’s accusation of China’s meddling in the 2020 elections, they still had the cheek to try to talk down to China. No apologies required because we just need to move on??

Bill Maher said it best in his Real-Time episode last week. America has zero high-speed railways while the rest of the world like Europe and China has them. It has not built a new airport in years. Infrastructure is so bad. Trillions of dollars have instead been spent on wars and military equipment to influence and destroy/meddle in the internal affairs of many countries. With BLM and the 06 Jan Capitol riots, it should try to resolve its own internal problems first, rather than try to teach the world the “right” way to do things. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…

Asian Americans are made up of many cultures and have been silent on racism for years as they preferred to just lay low and try to realize the American dream. The last 12 months had made them wake up to shout that enough is enough. They have to stay united and make their voices heard. Silence is no more an option as hate crimes had increased by 150% to more than 3,800 in the last one year after the orange one used disparaging terms like the China virus and Kung-Flu to target their ethnicity. That has given rise to more unsolicited and unprovoked violence especially against elderly Asians. #StopAsianHate is the new rally call now.

Biden had within the last 48 hours reached out to this affected group and condemned the racial violence experienced by Asian Americans. At least for now, they finally feel that their rally calls have been heard at the highest level of government. Things need to change now for the better, just like BLM. America needs to do what is right as it has been overdue for too long.

Meanwhile, I dread what is developing on the other side of the world in Myanmar. The protestors are faced with a well equipped military force that is not afraid to use their guns on peaceful protestors. More than 200+ had died since the military coup began on 01 Feb. Daily internet blackouts at night has been happening as the military tries its strong-arm tactics to break the will of the protestors into submission. But it is not working.

Taking a page from the HK protests in 2019, the protestors have escalated the confrontation and notch the tension up another level. They blame China for not willing to step in to condemn the military coup. They believe that China wants a helpful friend in Myanmar to target its rich natural resources and to access the Indian Ocean via landlocked Central Western China. Just over the last weekend, the protestors attacked 32 Chinese factories in Yangon as a way to show their anger. When China requested the military to protect their onshore assets, the military responded with a shoot to kill action and over 50 protestors were killed in those 2 days alone.

The HK protest lasted for almost 6 months until the pandemic stopped it. China took another 6 months to start cracking down on the perpetrators. Now they are also adding “patriot” clauses into the election requirements to stop the Independence movement.

Myanmar will reach its 2nd month anniversary of the coup soon. More bloodshed is expected as a younger generation who had not seen the military’s last violent crackdown in 1988-90 where more than 3,500 were supposedly killed are emboldened to fight on. With the country opening up in 2011 after 50 years of reclusive secret police Gestapo ruling, they have no historical perspective of what had happened before.

Some of my colleagues now in their late forties did live through those 1988-90 years as teenagers then. They cried when 01 Feb happened, having had to relive the 20+ years of lost youth again. They questioned about returning to the past again with screams of anguish. Having gotten to know the country for more than 7 years, my empathy and prayers go out to them. There was so much hope and appreciation of what the future might have been, now crushed violently by the actions of a few for the rest of the 55 million population.

The Civil Disobedience Movement has crippled the whole economy. Food prices are rising and all onshore banks have stopped functioning. This has also affected our microfinance business to farmers as we fear for the safety of employers and branches are unable to open. More people are now out of work and looking to escape the frequent violence of the military crackdown.

I am at a loss for words this week for the 2 things that had happened above. Feeling so helpless as an outsider watching in. Relating to the pain that they are going through but yet wondering if the distance away from them has also numbed my emotion and hardened my heart a little. I can only continue to pray for them silently.

It has been exactly 1 year since WHO declared the start of the COVID19 pandemic. And here we are now, 365 days later.

I started the weekly blog count 2 weeks earlier when I sensed that things are getting worse after my last Yangon business trip ended at the end of Feb 2020. My wife and I had also just had our first vacation to New Zealand then and things were getting weirder by the day as we read news of a growing unknown virus affecting more and more people. In Wellington, the tour guide pointed to the harbour and informed us that all shipping activities had stopped as their wood product inventories were full at the warehouse but they could not ship anything out. The logistics supply chain had frozen up.

Biden’s 1st public speech as president today was a compassionate one filled with empathy while having shown leadership within the first 50 days of his presidency. He remembered the over half a million Americans who had died and ask for the assistance of everyone to help fight the virus as we head towards the tail end of the finishing tape, thanks to the vaccination program.

He promised that everyone would have access to the vaccines by the end of May and that they might get back to some form of normalcy by July fourth Independence Day to celebrate the defeat of COVID19. He had been cautiously under-promising and over-delivering while preaching a message of unity. What a nice contrast to the orange one exactly a year ago who downplayed the virus and boasted about how great he was to the American people, taking all credit for any successes and blaming others for problems he created.

Hopefully, the conspiracy supporters and anti-vaccination crowd would finally wake up from their alternate universe and come back to the real world. They should realize the hoax that they have been drawn into and the GOP will finally rid itself of the orange one and work for the people instead of the cult of one man.

The $1.9 trillion package has finally been approved and much-needed help will begin to flow to the people who needs the support. Many countries will likely follow suit to boost their economies as the speed of the global vaccination program speeds up. S’pore should not be far behind to obtain herd immunity soon as the 60-69-year-olds have just gotten their vaccination letters.

GOP members are falling over each other trying to claim credit for the package that all of them had voted against. One even had the balls to claim that he approved some of the benefits but was against the whole thing instead. Someone forgot to inform him that it still doesn’t count. GOP didn’t even bother to try to negotiate or ask for compromises given the urgency of the pandemic and acted like a majority when they have become a minority.

This Biden victory so early into his term is a big slap in the face for the GOP. They cannot spin this any other way to their advantage but continue to talk about Mr Potato Head and Dr Seus. Pathetic. The demise of the GOP is near with the continuing cult worship of the orange moron. Lawsuits against him are coming in thick and fast from all sides. Their GOP star may soon be taken away to jail to be locked up and the keys thrown away. They really are in deep shit and denial now.

Meanwhile, kudos to Biden for strong leadership, empathy and level-headedness which have been missing for the last 4 years. It should have come earlier but later is better than never. In such a short time, we are beginning to see hope for the ending of the pandemic and not leaving things to chance. Top-down co-ordination of resources was sorely needed to attack this invisible enemy.

S’pore, for its part, has also been showing strong and direct leadership over the last 12 months to tackle the virus in a systematic way. Every problem that was thrown in its way, it has managed to solve the issue around and turned it around into an advantage. The Foreign Workers virus spread – resolved. The vaccine supply – ordered way in advance since Jun 2020. Targeted approach to help its citizens – drawing on reserves for an SGD 100 Billion rescue package. So many examples to highlight. I just hope that we appreciate the government instead of complaining all the time.

On the investment front, the sell down from the rise in US yields were an opportunity for more bargain hunting buying on dips. The 1.9 Trillion deal will release another round of liquidity into the US markets like what happened last year after the Mar 2020 meltdown. More Tesla and included Shopify, Fuelcell and Palantir. We should be fully into names that will benefit from the K shaped recovery which leverage technology and the new normal way of doing things.

This week was also the funding of an equity investment into a UK online Jewellery business in which we were interested in. It was started by an enterprising cousin who benefited from the pandemic lockdown and her business boomed in 2020. This is a private equity deal that may become a great investment in the future. Time will tell.

On the vaccination front, my parents and parents-in-law will be getting their first shots next week as those above 70 are next. My dad and mum, who are 92 and 87, will be having theirs on Monday. Given that they have had flu vaccines before, I think that they should be ok. To date, more than 660,000 vaccine injections have been given in S’pore. My younger son had already completed both his shots last month as he is part of the medical front line as a med undergrad.

Meanwhile, my AI course is progressing alone nicely as we complete our first project on EDT (Enterprise Design Thinking). The Myanmar situation after 1 month is getting worse by the day as the violence is escalating. I pray for the safety of the people who are working in the firm I have been consulting with for the past few years.

We say farewell to Feb and entered into Mar this week. Two months into 2021 and many exciting things have already happened. 06 Jan Capitol riots, Myanmar military coup and Biden’s first 30+ days of presidency had passed.

While there is more optimism built into the pandemic front, chaos seems to reign everywhere as countries scramble to acquire vaccine supplies and roll out their vaccination programs. The pace is accelerating day by day and America is on track to have enough for the whole population by the end of May. S’pore should be rolling it out more aggressively this month too.

The orange one had been silenced by most social media since leaving office while his most fervent supporters are getting investigated or arrested as the 06 Jan riot post mortem discussion widens. Some die-hard fans in GOP are still trying to latch on to his diminishing coat tail in hopes of trying to stay in office.

For the wider GOP gang like Mitch and Mitt, it looks like they are trying to buy time. The calculated guess is that the tsunami of lawsuits that will hit him like a ton of bricks in the coming months will automatically disqualify him to run in 2024. His Pandora box of tax returns had just been opened. The trail from the 06 Jan riots is likely to lead to him as the investigations widen when they do a 9/11 like hearing on this assault to Democracy.

The main survival trick for the orange one will be to stay relevant and shout as loud as possible to maintain GOP support even as many are leaving the party. What remains is the hardcore conspiracy-driven voters. He will scream that everyone is out to get him to prevent him from running again, even as more evidence is discovered of how corrupt he is, which implicates him. I would not be really surprised if he ends up in jail. He is already holding the record of being the only American president that had been impeached twice.

The GOP needs him to fade away first before the conservative right can take back control again. The gamble is that it might be too late by then as the membership could have shrunk too much already. They are already unrecognizable now versus the ideals they stand for just 10 years ago. Perhaps there is still hope as history shows. The Democrats were a pretty racist group in the 1960s who were for racial segregation then. Today, they are a very different team.

In the stock markets, the rotation to old-economy stock had started as the view that the pandemic is ending is taking hold. The timeline for full herd immunity is shortening as more vaccines come into production and supplies have been ramped up. There is hope that we might return to normal by summer now. The Fed is also holding steady for now. Bond yield has shot up dramatically in the last one month with US 30 years jumping more than 50 bps from 1.80% to 2.30%. This is a big move in such a short time and it had caused a drop in the stock markets as tech stocks are sold.

Fund managers are rushing to rebalance their portfolio by cashing out of their highly valued tech portfolio into more traditional cyclical businesses. The assumption is that things will go back to normal post-2019 very soon. I think this thinking is premature and wrong.

The virus has permanently changed everything we had done previously. The New Normal is here to stay. Technology like Zoom and QR codes now question the old way of doing things. We can be more efficient and productive without going to the office. Business travel is simply a waste of time, no? After a year of getting used to the new way of doing things, I do not think it is possible to go back to the Old Normal anymore.

Businesses that refuse or are too slow to recognize that will be left behind. The ones that embrace it will flourish. That is why I believe that there will be a K recovery instead. There will be a lot of companies that are walking zombies who are praying for more pandemic subsidies to tide through the year who will eventually collapse anyway. We just need to differentiate between these two groups and invest accordingly.

Personally, I have been buying on dips whenever there is a market correction to get the stocks I like and to adjust my portfolio. I see Zoom still doing well as they have a first-mover advantage and my current Skillsfuture course uses it extensively. I have been also doing research on dropshipping and always see the same name popping up. Shopify, a Canadian firm, is at the centre of this “create your own online store without holding inventory” phenomenon and this new way of doing business will continue to grow in the New Economy. Stocks that embrace renewable energy like FuelCell, Bloom and PLUG for battery technology is interesting too.

I joined the new exclusive app Clubhouse a few weeks ago, thanks to a friend. I have been trying to figure out this new fire-side chat room activity and why it was taking off. It finally hit me today when I was notified of a chat where the singer Will.I.Am was participating in. It was about marrying music and science to make things more interesting and fun for everyone to participate in. I was at the gym and decided to stay in the full 60 minutes call as I found it very interesting. Maybe this is what it is all about. To be able to have a personal and intimate listen-in to a conversation (max 5k limit) of someone you admire. More food for thought in the coming weeks.

With the Skillsfuture initiative in S’pore, I have had the opportunity since 2017 to participate in multiple training courses to learn and improve myself as part of my lifelong learning journey into the next part of my halftime path.

I had taken courses that included a specialist diploma in Business Analytics, understanding financial statements, Aquaponics, Science and Business of Wine, Blockchain (Seoul), eCommerce (Alibaba Hangzhou) and a number of MOOC online modules. I usually look for a training course on a specific topic that seems interesting to me.

With an unlimited 90% subsidy for any citizens above 40 years old and a database of 25,000+ courses to choose from, there is no excuse for me not to continue my lifelong learning journey. Anyone can just do a keyword search at www.myskillsfuture.gov.sg and all the relevant courses will be listed. Keyword search for Photography revealed 182 possible course choices!

The additional $1.5k of Skillsfuture funding provided to each Singaporean can also be used for the balance of the 10% payable too. This process of claiming had also been streamlined after a number of high profile fraud cases that happened in 2017. Certified trainers now will claim these funds directly from Skillsfuture on behalf of the student at the start of the course. Students need not bother themselves with paying it first from out of their own pockets and then waiting till the end of the training to claim for it.

As Covid19 hit us with its full impact in 2020, more job losses have occurred. The government had to accelerate a new initiative to help job seekers pivot to new economy roles. Most of the traditional roles had been made obsolete by the pandemic and technology. Mid-career workers who were stuck in the past needed help to switch to new economy careers.

At the end of Q3, the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways program was kickstarted. Google and IBM were the first 2 corporations that began the registration process for this new initiative to help older citizens pivot into new technology sectors. I had wanted to sign up initially but was hesitant then as I was in discussions to start a new business venture and had also just completed a consultancy project, plus there was my ongoing work with the Myanmar microfinance firm. Given that this was a full-time course and they had stated that it is only for those who are currently unemployed, I was unsure if I qualified.

I shared the one from IBM (https://webibmcourse.mybluemix.net/SGUnitedProgramme) with some of my friends to encourage them to join. The terms were very generous. The 6 months full-time course cost $20k and it was heavily subsidized to the tune of $19.5k while the balance of $500 can be paid using our Skillsfuture funds. On top of that, if you attend at least 75% of the classes every month, you will get a student allowance of $1.5k per month. This is as good as it gets and IBM offered 2 streams for this offering: Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity.

I was happy to learn later that 2 of my friends registered for these courses and started in Oct. They should be done by next month and hopefully be placed out for a full-time job then. Both of them were unemployed last year and it suited their schedule at that time to enter into a full-time training program. There was also a free option for students to drop out of the course anytime without penalties if they find a full-time job during the 6 months training.

I have regular catch-ups with both of my friends and their feedback was positive. Given that my business venture eventually did not take off, I decided to apply for the AI course in Jan. Luckily, the last batch will start in Feb and I was offered a position in it. I had also been doing my Myanmar consultancy remotely for the last 12 months due to Covid19 and then the military coup happened on 01 Feb. That means more remote consultancy for the foreseeable future. IBM has also acknowledged that some participants could be doing part-time work and so they relaxed their definition of unemployed status.

The stars seemed to have aligned for me to make me take this AI training. My friends in the course have also been sharing the course materials with me too. To date, IBM had already signed up almost 1,000 students, so I was lucky to be able to join the last class they had. If the government does not provide further financial support into 2021, we will be the last batch for them. It will also be a refresher training for me since my last course on Business Analytics at Temasek Polytechnic in 2018.

We had the orientation session on 17 Feb and I found out that all classes will be held online via Zoom except for the exams where we have to go in person to the centres to sit for them. It will be a new experience for me as I had never participated in virtual classroom training before. Hence there was some personal apprehension.

The course officially started this week. On 22 Feb, I discovered that there were 21 of us in this class. In this last cohort of the IBM training, there is a total of 3 AI classes and I was in group 1, student number 16. We logged onto Zoom just before 9 am for various administration processes to complete and do class attendance via QR codes and Zoom class photo-taking twice a day. The attendance process is an audit process to qualify for the student allowance (at least 75% attendance required per month). This will be automatically credited via PayNow to each of us by the end of the first week of each month.

With short breaks and an hour for lunch in between, daily classes were from 9 am to 5.30 pm and we had a free day on Wed this week. Thanks to new technology, the Zoom class really felt like we were all in a physical classroom. There was more privacy as each of us was in our own little den and can turn off the video when our breaks started. Zoom backgrounds can also be altered with various templates to hide our messy rooms too 🙂

The trainers were very professional and experienced by now. It is probably because we were the 9th batch they were conducting classes for. This week was basically an intro to the world of AI before we start to dive deeper into specific topics during the next 6 months. We had 2 days of “Getting started with AI”, followed by a rest day on Wed and then 2 more days of “AI in business”.

There were various short lab sessions to introduce the class to some of the systems we will be using, like IBM Watson Studio/Discovery/Maximo and Mural. Next week will be the first in-depth module on Enterprise Design Thinking to train us on how AI projects should be organized, to provide the correct infrastructure to lead the process from end to end. Then the next 3 modules would be Cloud Computing, Data Science and AI Practitioner with projects and multiple-choice questions exams in between.

The 1st week has been off to a positive start. I am looking forward to learning more and getting to know my classmates better in this 6 months learning journey.