Category Archives: Society

To clean a plastic broom

Yes, “To kill a mockingbird” was dancing around inside my head. Let’s get that out of the way. I found myself sitting on the floor this morning picking hairs and sticky dust monsters out of a plastic broom we have. The broom was made of plastic, and the business end of it was comprised of […]

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The Green Rebelution

What’s this “Green Revolution” all about? People have been trumpeting about “new” stuff for about as long as there have been humans on this earth. No, there’s nothing new. People have always had a basic understanding of how to care for the environment and what work needs to be done to keep food and water […]

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Principled Life. Regulated Death.

To me, economics is the study of how to best manage human covetousness so that the least amount of harm is allowed to be perpetrated. Of course, it is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses and emphasizes the importance of realizing that there are no “solutions” in this world, […]

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Singapore’s Foreign Worker Problem?

Yes, Singapore’s Foreign Worker Problem, which really isn’t a Foreign Worker Problem at all, but a Fallacy Of Entitlement Problem, and which happens to be our biggest FOE, the enemy of our continued success. Yet another round of discussions, debates, assertions, suggestions and other uselessly sanctimonious vows to improve the lot of Foreign Workers, whether […]

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Black Friday?

Yes, with a question mark. Not being an American, I have never paid much attention to Black Friday. I never thought it would figure much in Singapore, but it apparently has to some degree. Today’s local newspaper had a four-page spread featuring Black Friday sales at Robinsons. It caught my eye because Robinsons started out […]

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SOS answered, but DOA count mounts.

SOS – Supply Of Supplication Supplicants the world over beam their SOS signals every day. They ask for love, appreciation, fulfillment, excitement, purpose, gratification and so forth. This is besides the need for air, water and food so they can go on living. Increasingly, wants disguised as needs are also broadcast as SOS. We call this […]

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Free Market Regulation

“Over-regulation!” One of the concerns expressed during the recent PWC 18th CEO survey 2015, and which is not a new concern. And what is that? Simply put, the formulation of legislation to control the manner in which market players behave in terms which assume that the said players will act immaturely and avariciously regardless of their declared Mission, Vision and […]

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Disruption? So what, Leader?

A comrade of mine recalled an incident when he was training cadets. It happened to be an offensive operations exercise, and the cadets had fared very badly. During the main debrief, which was of course after all the After-Action-Reviews (AARs), “Hotwashes”, or what I personally have come to disdain as “Hogwashes” and so forth. When the […]

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I don’t want to be Normal! Unless Normal is Virtue and Wisdom.

Inducements to be normal are very powerful indeed. So powerful that individuals tend to remain silent and compliant when living in a highly “abnormal” society even when they feel things are not right. As a whole, we don’t want to believe the scientific evidence that the law of entropy is relentless and that the human […]

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Defaulting to the Pharmaceutical

~ Take a couple of Aspirin and come see me in the morning ~ A Doctor Recently, NUS Business School produced a video which featured, besides Singapore Airlines and one or two other companies, the Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital in Bangalore, India. What had happened was that the hospital had industrialized open-heart surgery to the nth […]

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Seven Billion.

Seems like an inexhaustible number, right? Wrong. Seven billion is finite. Seven billion can still be counted. I’m talking about our collective insatiable need to “Get this cheaper somewhere else. Never pay full price again.” Someone, somewhere, will always be selling it more cheaply, and we will never run out of sources of cheap goods […]

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Anti Ageing? Just Enable Exuberance!

Mankind has been searching for the elixir of youth for a long, long time. Anti ageing, the quest for youthfulness, indeed, the search for eternal life, is something innate in all of us. Even those who talk about an eternal blackness, of no consciousness, actually seek an unimaginably joyous eternity but sink into blackness because […]

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Wannabe Entrepreneur? Try Intrapreneurship First!

Tired of your job? No one appreciates how wonderful and valuable you really are? Sack your Boss and become an entrepreneur? Sure, do that! But before you do, you might like to consider the following intrapreneurship qualities: 1.     Are you REALLY good at your current job? Ask your co-workers. Not directly, ask around […]

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Rated PGA. Post-Grants Action Advised.

There has been a spate of increases in grants, as in funding, as in monetary, being given by the Singapore Government in recent years. Of course, they are meant to encourage Singapore companies to become more productive, more entrepreneurial, more organized, get more research work going, and a host of other things besides. The amounts […]

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Production – No Issue. Reproduction – Big Issue!

Most people I know have no problems with producing results, fulfilling KPIs, chalking up the numbers, and so on. Production is no big deal. You do what you’re supposed to do, maybe make some small, incremental improvements, do your due diligence, and….. voila! … the day is done. Even if some innovative new thing comes […]

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Dressing Well? What For, Don’t You Want The Real Me?

We can all expect similar responses, or perhaps reactions, if we bring up the topic of dressing well at work. Popular culture seems to have reacted against the perceived hypocrisy of being well-dressed and well-heeled outwardly, but being just the opposite inwardly. I suppose that’s where the term “stuffed shirts” comes from. The well-dressed of […]

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The Intrapreneur State

Intrapreneur is actually the same as entrepreneur except it operates within the framework of a larger organization that the Intrapreneur does not own. I think that most of us are born with an entrepreneurial mindset already embedded within us. Tragically, this is eroded by the time we get to school and start working, and is replaced […]

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