Category: Uncategorized

One can really feel it in the air that big revolutionary events are coming soon.

Like when email was introduced, everyone was able to easily get connected anywhere in the world. Then you had Facebook and the world of social media began. Whatsapp came along and we now had real-time private access to multiple groups and individuals.

Technological advancements continue to accelerate. As we look back to our lives a few years ago, we realized that we have moved at such a fast pace that we cannot imagine how it was like to live the way we do previously.

Looking forward, we see more disruptors ahead which will revolutionize the way we do things at an even greater momentum in the near future. Thanks to the example of Uber and Airbnb, all manner of industries will be turned upside down as they face their day of reckoning very soon. With technology being able to replace the middlemen and simplifying the ease of matching demand with supply in an efficient and seamless manner, all forms of traditional businesses will break down.

Driverless cars and trucks are coming much earlier than expected, online same day delivery is going to be the norm, any sectors with middlemen taking fat margins will be destroyed. Old jobs will disappear and many more new ones will appear. We are heading to the next quantum leap into the unknown near future that will be super exciting.

The next BIG thing(s) is/(are) coming…

UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), otherwise commonly called drones, have been evolving at a breathtaking speed in the last few years. I attended a UAV show yesterday and was wonderfully awed at the number of applications a drone could accomplish nowadays.

I was initially attracted to drones because of my interest in videography as I had been doing home-made videos of the kids since 2000. My interest was ignited when I started seeing amazing online videos and documentaries which had mind-blowing aerial shots.

On further research, I discovered that the top drone manufacturers are mainly from China and the cost had dropped significantly too. I decided to buy a beginner’s set with an attached camera to learn this new skill and it only cost $60 ! It was relatively easy to set up as you can just hook up your smartphone to the controller via Bluetooth to view the video in real-time.

The UAV show further opened my eyes to the multiple uses of drones. From military applications like the US Predator used to hunt ISIS, to creating 3D imaging of lands for mapping and active agricultural/security management, new uses are constantly being discovered. Amazon is even studying the application of drones for last mile package deliveries.

For personal videography, I have also seen advertisements of palm size drones which can just be launched easily to follow and record you while you are on the move (hovering mode). Imagine making a snowboarding/biking video of yourself without the need to hold a selfie stick!

 

Is the Zika paranoia totally overdone now? While the government wants to be transparent and upfront about this, are we going overboard on the scare factor?

Yes, we understand that Zika is harmful to pregnant women. Yes, it can be transmitted via sexual contact. Numbers have suddenly shot up to more than 100 but is it deadly? Nobody has died from it so far and most have had mild symptoms and recovered successfully.

Zika has already been detected since 1947 in Africa and it has been moving around the world till now. Thanks to the media, it is being hyped up as an uncontrollable epidemic. The probability of the unborn child getting microcephaly is between 1 to 13%, a 1 in 10 chance. Brazil has caught all the recent attention because of the Rio Olympics and that  a significant number of its citizens had contracted it. Note that to date, 70 countries have already reported cases of Zika already.

I pity the currently pregnant women who are now being bombarded with worse case scenarios, even as their bodies are going through severe hormonal changes. This is not like SARS where the infected can die from it. Let’s be rational and just take sensible precautions.

 

I came across this interesting article (see link below) which has given me a lot of food for thought.

Imagine if you could create a retirement fund for your kids now. The funds are put into a low-risk investment instrument that is protected by a triple-A rated country (there are only 12 such countries in the world).

In S’pore, the Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a compulsory comprehensive savings plan for working citizens that is primarily used to fund their retirement, healthcare and housing needs. Theoretically, one can open a CPF account the moment you are born.

At the moment, the retirement funds are parked in the Special Account (SA) that pays 4% per annum. It currently only accepts up to a maximum of $161,000. The funds in the SA account can only be withdrawn at the retirement age of 55. If you put away the maximum amount to your kid’s account when he is born, the long term compounding effect will mean that he will receive $1.5 million when he retires at 55!

Of course, the basic assumption here is that the 4% yield does not change for 55 years. The other negative to take into consideration is that you will be locking away funds for a very very long time.

But isn’t it wonderful that you can now leave a legacy gift to your loved ones to provide for a comfortable kitty at the tail end of their career? We are seriously considering this option now, but with a smaller amount.

http://business.asiaone.com/news/cpf-the-ultimate-trust-fund-kids

With the arrival of new technology, we do see many traditional jobs being wiped out.

Fintech in banking is threatening to make most jobs obsolete as Artificial Intelligence replaces slow human reactions, blockchain will destroy inefficient business silos and robo advisors to provide better investment wisdom at a fraction of the cost. Driverless cars previously touted to appear by 2020 is already being launched next month. Once that becomes mainstream, the whole industry of drivers (truck/train/taxi etc) will be made redundant.

Reminds me of the SIMEX futures open outcry industry where I started my career. The instant the trading went online, it was a matter of months before all the tradition order fillers became jobless. Where does this leave us?

Career paths are now measured in a less than 3 years timeframe instead of a life long one. New types of jobs are being created as we speak, unheard of just a few years ago. With the internet, the whole wide world can be your audience now. There is no glass ceiling and your potential is only limited by your imagination.

Take the youtube blogging celebrity PewDiePie (go ask your kids). He is a 26-year-old guy who plays video games and films them with his commentaries (vlogs). Within 5 years, his youtube channel has garnered 47 million subscribers and 13 billion views. Rumour has it that he earned $15 million in 2015. How crazy is this? Doing something you like and getting paid gazillions for it… Pokemon Go fanatics can now easily monetize their passion into a career that will leave their parents dumbstruck…

We will see many more new jobs being created even as we lose more traditional ones. Web designers, bloggers, social media influencers and online e-commerce were all non-existent a few years ago. The younger generation gets to immediately compete and showcase their talent at a global level, not constrained by geography. Fascinating times indeed…

PS. Interesting factoid :  Squeezing pimples are gross, right? Check out Dr Pimple Popper on youtube. The qualified doctor had been filming her ops for her records and then found out that people like to watch such videos. Since uploading her videos, she has become a mini-celebrity. My son says that watching them is quite therapeutic … I had to stop myself from watching them after day 3 .  Ewww….

 

 

How successful as a country are we in Multiculturalism? It is defined as the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviours, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles.

For years since the beginning of our young country, our forefathers have been emphasizing the cohesion of all citizens as one people, regardless of race, language or religion. There were the social experiments to force everyone to live together in public housing in the 1960s. This was frown upon by the Western world then. Moving into current times, history has shown that people of the same group instinctively prefer to live together – see the Chinatowns of the various big cities as an example. With the influence of the ISIS threat now, Europe is questioning if the authorities should break up large Muslim communities.

One great champion of multiculturalism was our ex-President SR Nathan, who passed away recently at 92. He embodied the true meaning of being color blind and served all citizens as one united people. While he retains his Indian roots and heritage, he nevertheless tirelessly supports all groups and utilizes his vast network to do good, to bring everyone together. We have seen so many examples of his largeness as many from different faiths shared about his contributions last week.

With subsequent generations, I tend to believe that our children are more receptive of other races and religions than my parents or my age group. This process takes time to inculcate and it needs to begin at a young age. Hopefully, we can truly say that we have reached the ideal goal of multiculturalism by the time we reach SG100.

 

 

 

 

The haze is coming back again this year with a vengeance. Just within a span of 12 hours from 1 am to 1 pm today, the 1-hour PM2.5 reading has shot up from a low of 6 to 198 !! The haze had already been making its presence felt for the last few nights as I could smell burning wood in the early hours of the morning.

When Asia was in the midst of the Asia Financial crisis in the late nineties, no one had a clue as to how bad the situation was. I remembered playing golf in 1997 and at the tee off point, I could see little bits of ash floating down on us. Given the financial meltdown then, no one had the bandwidth to pay much attention to air quality.

A few years ago in 2013, the haze got so bad that the PM2.5 reading exceeded 400!!! Even the interiors of the shopping malls looked blurry and acrid smoke was choking shoppers. They even had to seal off the main entrances with thick plastic sheets to try to prevent the smog from entering the mall.

Indonesia is the main culprit but yet their politicians leave much to be desired, periodically shooting off stupid remarks while the rest of South East Asia suffocates. Deforestation is the main reason for the haze as more and more peatlands were drained over the years. Peat, a mixture of partially decomposing vegetation in a water-saturated environment, becomes highly combustible when dry, like charcoal. Once ignited, the burning is almost impossible to stop as it spreads underground and releases toxic CO2 gases for months. President Jokowi had started to mobilize troops last year to create canals to wet the peatlands again, in an effort to stop the haze. He honestly stated that this problem might take more than 3 years to resolve.

Time to take out the air filters and ionizers from the storerooms again. Shops will run out of stock soon and face mask prices will rise. Big sigh…

 

 

I am a fan of Lee Kuan Yew‘s books. I strongly recommend the following 2 books : Hard Truths to Keep S’pore Going and One Man’s View of the World.

LKY writes them in short and to the point sentences which is a pleasure to read. I am always amazed that the analysis he does about various countries done more than 10 years ago is still so surprisingly pertinent today. Over his long and illustrious career, he has met up with all types of politicians and has become the go-to person to consult for global trends and in-depth understanding of complicated issues. Whenever he does a speech in the media, I would make sure to watch it or read a transcript later. He brings a refreshing perspective to any situation and enlightens everyone with his deep analysis of the subject being discussed. His strong command of the Queen’s English due to his law background is a sight to behold.

Recently, I have come across another person who speaks his mind like LKY. Bilahari Kausikan is currently a policy advisor to Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). His career path is definitely moulded from the school of LKY. Oftentimes, he had bravely spoken out on taboo subjects and is never shy to air his thoughts. Not long ago, he called out China’s attempt to divide ASEAN countries with regards to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. He had also suggested in another recent article that perhaps the strong push by China on the sea disputes could be linked to Xi’s grand plan to overhaul the inefficient military structure within China. By focusing the country on a patriotic mission, he could execute his strategy to clean up the bloated infrastructure and get rid of 300,000 soldiers at the same time.

It has been more than a year since LKY’s passing at 91. His words of wisdom remain with us through these books. It should be compulsory reading for all students to learn about the short history of our country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/comment–bilahari-kausikan–singapore-s-undiplomatic-diplomat-031321174.html