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It's a conspiracy.
I won't say more here lest my blog entry suddenly disappears too. http://blog.dk.sg/2009/03/17/news-articles-on-north-west-cdc-8-months-bonus-disappeared-from-mainstream-media/ here's the cached file: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:Y0duZ5YhZnQJ:www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/specialreport/news/415302_73/1/ Ok after that cathartic entry, it's time for some more random musings.
Just read the article "Asia needs to rebalance" in Today, March 13 2009. It talks about Asia needing to boost local and regional demand at the fundamental level (ie. take real steps and do real work, instead of simply tweaking interest rates or exchange rates), improving regional cooperation and taking the lead in leading the world out of recession. This is a recurring theme in my ideas about economics, but it strikes me as somewhat missing the point. Why should it be that you must boost demand to achieve growth rather than suit the supply to the demand? The simple answer would be that it creates jobs. World population is increasing. More people need more goods and money to buy these goods. Money comes from jobs (or stealing, I suppose, but that's beyond the scope of this argument). Thus, growth is good, and by extension increasing demand is good too. I don't agree with this line of thinking. There are a lot of things to consider just below the surface. One, that this would likely result in an increasingly materialistic society and world, ever consuming, ever taking. (USA, anyone? Consumerism gone crazy.) Two, that resources are not infinite. In the craze to produce more, grow more, governments around the world are ignoring the importance of sustainability. What matter that this country or that "grows" (ie. becomes bigger in population size and consumes more) more than another in this short time frame when we're actually depleting the Earth for future generations? At this rate, we won't last another millenium. I know, growth is supposed to fuel innovation and more efficient processes as well, but somehow the innovation is slow to come and doesn't even come close to fighting the depletion of natural resources around the world. In the long run, we're all dead, is that it? Do as much as we can now because it won't be here tomorrow? I don't buy that. I feel that for the economic model to work, sustainability must factor significantly in the equation. The way that my country is run, our leaders seem to view economic growth as an end in itself, constantly pushing for ever higher growth and cautioning that any deviation from this path would lead to Singapore becoming "irrelevant" in the global market. Which is true, I suppose. But it smacks of oneupmanship to me. Does it really matter that Singapore lags behind economically? We are a country, not a business. There are other things to consider: happiness, family, quality of life (which stress and pollution degrade). Case in point: Bhutan. Similar size, radically different lifestyle. I leave it to you to decide which is better. There's more I want to say but time is getting short. I have somewhere else to be. So i guess the rest will have to come later =) ciao. I hate it that i'm unable to articulate my thoughts clearly when I speak. It's so clear in my head, the words i want to use, the meaning I want to convey to whoever I am speaking to. But somehow in the interim, between my head and my tongue, the words are swallowed, garbled, and come out incomprehensible; or worse, become entirely contrary to what I was trying to say in tone or in choice of words. I have inherited my father's curse.
It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out where this ailment came from: my insecurity when I was young, which I still feel now and try to compensate for. That, in turn, came from my being overweight all through primary and most of secondary school, and the bullying that arose from that. My reaction to such bullying was belligerence and a certain amount of antisocialism (heh), and as a result I have few friends now. My parents used to tell me how I mumbled and kept my eyes on the floor when I walked, but what I remember more clearly was that I used to flare up often in irrational anger and accuse people of picking on me even when they weren't. Probably I did all of those things. So childish, I was. So because of that, I am a late bloomer. That much is obvious to me now, in retrospect. Emotionally and practically, I have been slow to mature, though I feel like I'm finally starting to come into my own now. Years late compared to my peers, but better late than never. If you're wondering what brought on this sudden outburst, I'm sorta going through a midlife crisis (yes, at 20). I'm seeing how far behind I am compared to my peers, and it was a wakeup call. I'm already 20 this year. It's time to step up and take control of my life. I've wasted so much time alienating people at school, hiding at home, and playing computer games singlemindedly. I'm not going to waste any more. |
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