The Legal Janitor

I chanced upon a perceptive and lucid blog post written by Tan Tarn How over here on his personal blog. I shall quote here the relevant portion which I wish to comment on.

3) Politics must be treated seriously, and politicians must be respected like one respects one’s uncle (this was how it has been put before by the government itself). It is useful to remember that Catherine Lim’s most serious misdemeanour in the eyes of the government is, more than anything else, her inappropriate and insufficiently awed tone of voice when talking about the prime minister. mr brown’s form and style of writing – which has ranged from the satire of his famous podcasts to the cynicism of the offending column at hand - is something that goes against the principle of seriousness and respect. Satire uses the tactic of laughter to further its strategy of contempt. Cynicism is the black ice on which all attempts at serious discussion slip and fall. There is really no effective way to counter satire and cynicism. Nevertheless censorship is in some ways the least ineffective.

Mr Tan’s observation, if true, really burns me up. It makes me well and truly furious. I am seething with anger as I am sitting here typing this post out.

Let me state that I despise and detest any person who demands respect simply on the basis of age or social position. So you are a civil servant or high ranking official or a minister. Or you are really old. So fucking what? You want to get your knickers in a twist when your claim to fame is piddling power on a small island nation? Or that you happen to live long enough to see your balls sag down to your knees?

Even more despicable are those who coerce and force one to submit to their power, into involuntarily giving that respect. If there ever was a single reason why I am libertarian, this would be it.

It is for this reason why I reject the notion of “Asian values”, why I despise anyone who propounds it, who thinks that it exists. Look at the facts: those who unquestioningly obey and submit to authority under the excuse of “Asian values” are the ones sitting at home, jobless and helpless. Those who demand respect and obeisance on the basis of “Asian values” do not know how to live, adapt and flourish in a globalised economy, and only know how to function as parasites feeding on taxes and levies.

The only two things people should ever consider respecting are Truth and Logic. No other. None other.

Tan Tarn How: On The Management of Dissent

Ever since being bombarded with the phrase “governance with a light touch”, I keep imagining this scary old man wearing all white sneakily flitting his hands across the thighs and bosoms of nubile young ladies. And who can blame me? There seems something really quite perverse about how this so-called “light-touch” is venerated as “The Right Thing” (trade mark application pending).

Funnily enough it appears that molest appears really to be the agenda. And not on nubile young ladies mind you, but rather on ordinary normal people. For example, like mr brown, who is a family man, loving husband and father, geek gamer, humourist and all-round nice guy. He really doesn’t sound like the sort where scary old men dressed in all white would like to molest, and yet he was. Yucks!

Apparently there’s this government organisation that specialises in molesting people, Molesters Interested in Controlling Anybody. The interesting is, they don’t just molest you, they also tell you that you can’t talk about the abuse, or any other thing which they don’t allow you to talk about. That’s the worst part I think, that apart from being cruelly violated in mind, body and spirit, you can’t even talk about it to other people. Think about the horrible trauma that mr brown must be going through! And yet, he must stay silent.

The funniest part for me though, is that the agent they sent to do the molesting, looks exactly like how I would imagine Dolores Umbridge would look like. Yes, the Lady of Pain, Suffering, Banal Evil and Government Supremacy, the Inquisitor par excellence herself. (In case you don’t know who Dolores Umbridge is, she’s a civil servant in the Harry Potter series of books. Interesting coincidence.) Who would have thought that like would imitate art?!?

This time, the Molesters Interested in Controlling Anybody have gone too far. Their latest actions reek of ignorance, stupidity, and ultimately, mean-spiritedness. Nobody likes people who act like fucking bastards and assholes.

I guess the gahmen doesn’t like to face or answer hard questions. But there are some things which we must seriously think about holding them to account for, after all these years of giving themselves grand accolades and mad propz.

Let us consider the issue of cost of living. I think we should make a distinction between the general cost of living, which is measured by the CPI, and the costs associated with specific necessary goods and services.

First question: We are constantly having the message that the global economy is fiercely competitive drummed into our heards by the state-controlled media, so ok, fine, we know that there’s plenty of competition everywhere. However, a basic observation of economics is that where there is intense competition, prices fall.

There are abundant facts to support this observation. Ever since China entered the world market, prices have fallen across a broad range of goods. Textiles (clothes), computer products, IT products, etc. Just ask any techhead and they can tell you that the prices of computer hardware has fallen tremendously over the last 5-10 years.

Since I don’t know where to find information regarding the CPI in Singapore, the first thing we have to know, is that whether the general cost of living has risen over the past 5-10 years. And if it has, by how much. Once we can establish these facts, we can start asking the really hard questions. My guess is that the general cost of living must have actually fallen during the “recession” years, from 1997 till 2002, and most likely slowly rising again from 2003 to 2005.

The real issue however, has to do with specific goods and services which defy the rigours of competition, and continue to rise in price. For example, transportation and medical services, both of which are really basic necessities. If i am not wrong, prices in public transport and medical services not only did not fall during the recession years (I believe they held steady), they rose as the economy started growing again.

Another important point to remember is that both the medical sector and public transport have become privatised over the years. An important purpose of privatisation is to increase competition and allow the competing commercial entities to provide better services to consumers. If that were true, then prices in public transport and medical services should have fallen, and should be falling. Obviously, they are not. The really hard question here then, is why have they not? I think the answer is simple. There is no competition in the public transport or medical services market.

Public transport consists of 2 main companies, SMRT and SBS, which operate rail, bus and taxi services, plus an assortment of various small taxi companies. SBS and SMRT have carved up Singapore into geographical regions in which they do not compete, effectively allowing each to retain a monopoly on their respective regions. On top of this structural monopoly, they are also effectively insulated from actual competition by a licensing regime controled by the government that is a powerful barrier to entry. It is no surprised that the requirements for obtaining a license overwhelmingly favour the industry incumbents. Furthermore, a cursory examination of the Board of Directors of both SBS and SMRT would reveal not a few interesting facts about these people.

The same thing has happened with the health sector, which have been grouped into “clusters”, National Healthcare Group and SingHealth. A look at their Board of Directors would reveal the same type of star-studded cast. The medical licensing regime is even more restrictive than for transport businesses: how likely would it be that a non-incumbent that has the resources to set up hospitals would be allowed to? On top of these barriers of entry, the supply of doctors is effectively controled at its source: NUS has quotas for the intake of medical students every year, and the rules allowing foreign medical graduates to practice in Singapore are certainly restrictive.

The answer to everyone’s questions why transport and healthcare costs are rising every year, amidst the blatant falling of prices in every other class of goods and service, is because these industries are protected by the government. There is no competition in these industries, and hence prices are not falling. The answer as to where to lay the blame, is clear.

PS: Some people would assert that public transport is naturally monopolistic, but I think that is a load of rubbish. I can provide many examples where goods or services which at one time were thought to be “natural” monopolies have eventually become no longer so due to technological progress, and the only reason why the monopolies still exist is because of government regulations itself. But this is another discussion for another day.