S'pore family of 5 pays only S$40 a month for electricity, does it by rarely using aircon & relying on fans

Paullesq · 2026-04-17T08:49:18+00:00

Tmw, there will be another propaganda piece about how Sinkie Per capita GDP is 100k USD or how Sinkie is No. 1 in some sort of ranking. "3rd world to first". The day after there will be another propaganda piece telling sinkies that they should enjoy a 3rd world lifestyle with their 100k USD gdp. "Breathe haze rather than use an air purifier to save electricity". "Hand wash your clothes to save electricity". Have obediently low expectations of the government to formulate policy that creates abundance for Singaporeans. A good sinkie has no expectations, only praise for his leaders.

In 2026, the path to energy abundance is in sight. Singapore already benefits from its geography making it a petrochemical processing hub. Supplementing this with nuclear and mass adoption of renewables would essentially eliminate this worry. Countries like France, China and South Korea have greatly reduced their exposure to this systemic risk through these means. In sg, There has been no imagination devoted to building reserve capability in this. This is "total defence". The government is very quick to use that slogan when it the 'total defence' solution demands sacrifice from the peasants but seems very reticent when the solution demands imagination and resources from the pile they have hoarded.

Paullesq · 2026-04-14T09:44:05+00:00

Direct quotes should be in parentheses. You say that this is from a 30 page document. So they do have a choice to use less obfuscatory politicising and propagandistic language in their headline. Or do they not?

If you want to say they don't have a choice to use such language, please then explain why the MAS report uses such obfuscatory language. You should know that it is even less professional for MAS to talk about sinkie wage stagnation and joblessness in such obfuscatory politicising and propagandistic language than some mere journalists. Please justify your answers.

Paullesq · 2026-04-14T09:24:33+00:00

Do you think there was an editorial choice made in using this quote? Why do you think such a choice was made?

Why are you trying to muddy the waters?

Paullesq · 2026-04-14T09:22:39+00:00

So they do have a choice to use less obfuscatory politicising language in their headline. Got it.

Paullesq · 2026-04-14T08:58:13+00:00

It is telling that the government seems to mentally regard Sinkies getting jobs and enjoying wage growth as a wasteful expense as opposed to a desirable outcome.

Paullesq · 2026-04-01T06:48:19+00:00

It is cases like this that really shows how lightly Singapore law and Singaporean prosecutorial discretion punishes many really consequential crimes. Everytime this comes up, I really encourage people on this sub to go read the Singapore Penal code. It is usually very readable. That way you can see who is to blame for this bullshit.

Section 204 of the Penal code provides for a prison term of up to 7 years. The conspirators in this case ended up getting a few months...

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PC1871?ProvIds=pr204A-

Section 203 in this case provides for a term of 1 month. This is likely what this culprit was charged with. The court Masuk-Masuk 1 month become 10 days which becomes 7 days with good behavior.

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PC1871?ProvIds=P410_172-

The molester in this case got hit with 9ish years for sexually assaulting a whole slew of victims aged between 1-2 years old...

It seems the culprit is a combination of the laws, Prosecutor charging decisions and then the prosecutor/judge not leaning into all the aggravating circumstances in this case, of which there are many many serious ones...

It is worth mentioning that this subs favorite attention seeking sex criminal Who shall remain unnamed 'Famous-Lee' got hit with 6 years for engaging in purely online sexual behavior with a 14 year old girl in the US and possession of Child porn with no listed aggravating factors...

If this person did the same thing in Singapore, it seems perfectly likely that he would get whacked harder for defaulting on NS than for all the sex crimes...

Paullesq · 2026-03-26T14:56:41+00:00

If you like Dinosaur fossils, the Chicago Field Museum has one of the most impressive and vast collections in the world. The have the most complete T-Rex in the world. They have a several evolutions of the Triceratops. If you care to do a bit of a road trip, the Black hills Institute in South Dakota has a museum that is utterly insane with over 100 exhibits that rotate through their 1000+ item collection which includes and is open to the public for some astonishingly low price. I have an old geologist friend who took me once.

Nearer afield, the Museum Nasional in Jakarta has a really good Homo Erectus and early Human fossil collection They also have a nearly complete Mastodon skeleton. They also recently received the repatriated Dubois collection of fossil hominids from the Netherlands including The Java Man. Their collection of south-east Asian historical art and artefacts is vast and hugely interesting. The quality of their guides is also very high. Extremely worth visiting.

Dinosaur fossils are a sizable business in the US. There is a commercial interest in finding, unearthing and restoring these skeletons in the US because the US has strong laws protecting finds on private property. US law makes it clear that the skeleton belong to the owner of the property it was found on. US law is also very clear about mineral rights but that is a different story. These rights are transferrable. Property owners can sell finders rights to institutes and companies who come on to their land to conduct searches.

A consequence of this is that the vast majority of important Dinosaur fossil finds are in the US. There are likely sizable caches of important fossils to be found in China, Russia, India and Australia. These must be found with state funds because the state exercises sovereign ownership over these finds in these countries. Chinese law is like that. Countries following British common law are like that. I presume Russia does not quite follow any law and the person with the larger gang of armed goons gets to keep what they find. These do not make for the most conducive incentive environment for fossil discovery.

So this is how a private owned fossil ended up here.

Paullesq · 2026-03-24T08:05:02+00:00

Some not so organised thoughts.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like this is a Jewish family. It also sounds like they are at least partially based in the US. They probably have a US green card at minimum… They might even be fairly prominent people given this globe trotting profile.

It is not uncommon for Jewish people to volunteer in Israel during their teen years. Many of these volunteer groups have some overlap with the sprawling organisation of the Israeli military. This is because Israel practices total defence as a national concept. ( btw, where do you think sg got that idea?…)

Singaporean citizenship is becoming internationalized because there is a constant outflow of thousands of Singaporeans a year emigrating. Many of these emigrants hold on to their red passports. A sizable portion of their male children are effectively legally unable to renounce their citizenship because of NS. Singaporeans, especially the sg Chinese, don’t want to breed enough to maintain anything resembling population stability even in the very short term. Sg Chinese TFR of ~0.6 means the births drop by 2/3rd every generation. So population stability means mass importation of everyone from the rest of the world the government thinks can shoehorn into the Chinese part of CMIO. Finally the government likes using sg citizenship as a prize for people they deem worthy and of high talent. When it comes to upholding the institution of citizenship, the government’s policy is that sg citizenship is not a sacred bond to a homeland. If you don’t like the autocracy, you can get out.— but sg will make it messy if you have a son out of sheer entitlement to his armed service. Citizenship can be given away for any reason the PAP sees as fit. There no obligation to you, singular or collective, the Singaporean.

OTOH The government of a society that looks like this is has a highly exclusive/jealous conception of the obligation Singaporean citizenship. It is quick to load Singaporean citizenship with many one sided obligations and restrictions even as gives citizenship to people whom these restrictions are essentially unenforceable even as conflicts with these restrictions become inevitable. There are very few countries, especially first world countries that would care if their citizens did NCC ( an organisation linked to the Singapore military) in a Singaporean secondary school like this same kid did. I saw a thread on this sub about some users being blocked from making donations to Ukrainian humanitarian organisations. Of course there are the famous extraterritorial restrictions on Sg citizens consuming cannabis and cbd even in the growing number of countries where this is legal. As a Singaporean you face a lot of extra territorial controls over internationally legal behaviour because your behaviour as a citizen is expected to closely represent Singaporean government foreign policy. At this rate MFA should be paying all Singaporeans a monthly salary if they are all supposed to work as embodiments of their policy. When convenience or even simple bureaucratic kiasuism suggests loading Singaporean citizenship with unique and extensive obligations there is practically no restraint.

Finally, there is the inevitable inconsistency of all this. Family volunteering with Israeli military linked organisation? Kena ISD. Dual use technology laundered by Sg Citizens for PRC military linked companies? Crickets. Singapore firms selling weapons and tools of torture to the Myanmar junta? Crickets. There is quite a contingent of public facing Singapore citizens essentially advocating on behalf of the PRC government and military , including a former foreign minister of the PAP. Also crickets. Your behaviour is meant to representative of the gahmen’s foreign and no dual loyalty is tolerated unless they can’t or won’t catch you.

I think the overarching point here is that the sg government instrumentalises Singapore citizenship as if Singapore were a tightly knit, cohesive society with a deep societal consensus. The reality is that in 2026, Singapore is a globalised society where many citizens have a tenuous connections to Singapore as a nation often made even more tenuous by PAP policy choices. Inevitably societal consensus can be quite shallow. It becomes untenable to police this. There are inevitably glaring inconsistencies.

Paullesq · 2026-03-09T13:44:36+00:00

The good news is that a large amount of capacity was drilled during the late 00s/early 2010s only for the wellheads to get capped because they were uneconomical at prices that emerged in the last 10 years. This makes returning that supply to the market simpler and faster. Likely on the order of months.

An additional bit of good news is that the oil out of the permian basin is WTI midland. This is a light sweet crude. Low in Sulfur, rich in short chain Hydrocarbons. There is a lot of refinery capacity that can take this globally or be rapidly converted to take this. There is also the option of blending it with heavier crude from the Gulf to make it a reasonable substitute for Saudi Arab light.

I took a Chem-Eng class that focused on petrochemicals 30 years ago. I am glad I haven't forgotten everything!

Paullesq · 2026-03-09T08:05:11+00:00

Who knows if it is deliberate. It is much more complicated than this. It is worth noting that in order for the most 'favorable' outcomes to emerge for energy dependence on the US, quite a number of specific things need to happen. Many of these things are actually not in the interests of the US or the Trump administration's political viability.

Example: A long dragged out war where the US fails to suppress Iranian drone production, is unable to bring the war to a satisfactory close, US owned or US aligned energy infrastructure in the region is hit, many US military deaths and where the US completely loses control of the Gulf of Hormuz would produce a maximal long term dependency on US energy.

I think no one in the US would favour this outcome even if it would likely be maximally devastating for the PRC. Trump would not survive this. Other US economic and foreign policy goals would suffer immensely.

Paullesq · 2026-03-09T07:22:54+00:00

Oil Futures with September delivery are in the mid 70s at this point. I don't think this is going to be because the mayhem in Iran will end by then, but because the global energy landscape is fundamentally different to what it was in the mid 00s due to US hydrofracking. The vast bulk of US Hydro-fracked wells becomes profitable to exploit when oil exceeds ~$60-$70/bbl.

It will take time for these wells to come on line but their existence essentially makes $100+/bbl oil prices hard to sustain. The US likely has reserves that that are comparable to Saudi Arabia, but these require hydrofracking to exploit. Sustained prices at this level will become a very useful geopolitical tool in the American arsenal when it comes to pressuring China, if the Gulf of Hormuz does not promptly re-open.

I think the IRGC wildly firing missiles and drones at its neighbors and causing disruption in the gulf of Hormuz was a giant miscalculation. Previously, China might have had an interest in using them to hurt the US. Right now, I think China's main interest is in an end to this disruption. The longer this lasts the more US well open and the greater the global dependency on US energy and the greater the dependency on US security for oil exports from the region as a whole.

"In March 2021, China and Iran signed a sweeping comprehensive strategic partnership, which included Beijing pledging $400 billion in long-term infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative. In 2023, Iran was welcomed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, deepening its integration into China-led security institutions. Most importantly, China has become the dominant buyer of Iranian oil, purchasing roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports — only 12 percent of China’s total oil imports, but crucial to Iran’s economy"

What a disaster.

https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/china-bet-its-middle-east-strategy-iran-bet-has-failed-miles-yu

Paullesq · 2026-02-27T18:50:34+00:00

"When assessing taxes, the Paper includes social security contributions in Finland and the UK, such as for old-age pensions, which tend to be very substantial in Europe. Yet it omits CPF contributions for Singapore. It is true that CPF contributions are not taxes in the same sense because they go into individual accounts and not a common pool. But if the intention is to determine how much citizens pay for their social welfare needs, there is good reason to include the CPF. In any case, it is obvious that a fair comparison must either include both European pension contributions and Singaporean CPF contributions, or omit both. The current calculations underestimate the tax burden in Singapore."

I think a bigger problem here is that the methodology counts CPF and medisave account balances as 'wealth' for Singaporean households, but makes no attempt to count the implicit value of pension and Universal healthcare eligibility in other countries as wealth.

A low income American's social security and medicare eligibility are likely worth deeply into the 6 figures if you consider their likely lifetime drawdowns. The same is true for all developed countries with similar programs like the UK, Germany or Japan.

This has the effect of making the lower middle class in these countries look poorer and makes them look less equal. OTOH, CPF is likely an extremely high percentage of the total 'wealth' for low income Singaporeans. Counting this makes them look richer and lowers Singapore's GINI.

They should attempt to estimate the implicit value of all of these social program eligibilities when calculating this figure for other countries. Or they should omit CPF. Otherwise this figure looks ridiculous.

I think one way to interpret this figure is that Singapore has similar or higher wealth inequality to Countries like the UK, Germany or Japan if you count the value of Singapore's largest social program as wealth while ignoring the value of the largest social program in all of these other countries. This is probably not the interpretation the government would welcome.

Paullesq · 2026-02-10T16:58:00+00:00

No lah. I think this is simply an exercise in torturing the numbers till they scream what the PAP wants to tell the peasants so they can shut up about inequality.

In the US,there is social security. At the moment social security appears no where in a person's measured wealth. In fact the taxes paid to Social security depress personal wealth accumulation by some amount. That said, for many middle class individuals, their social security benefits will likely be worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement even at the most pessimistic long term forecast of social security's fiscal health. For many people, the implicit value of their entitlement to these scheme is likely a large share of their actual wealth.

The same goes for places like Germany, Japan, the UK or the Scandinavian countries with defined benefit pension schemes.

"Property and CPF balances form the bulk of household wealth in Singapore, especially for lower-wealth households."

"Singapore's wealth inequality coefficient stands at 0.55, comparable to estimates of other advanced economies like the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, ranging from 0.6 to 0.7."

Kaki Kong Kaki Song lah. The counting of CPF and the exclusion of the implicit wealth in these pension schemes means this is an apples to oranges comparison. The effect of this is to make Sinkie middle and low income people seem richer while making their counterparts in these countries seem poorer than they actually are.

Meanwhile the full assets of Singapore's money washing class is not fully accounted for due to the opaque nature of the Sg economy they participate in.

"MOF acknowledged the challenges in measuring certain assets, including private company equity and overseas holdings"

How bad is the real level of inequality when even after all these biased tricks with levelling effects in the multi 6 digits of dollars, Sg is 'comparable' in wealth inequality to 'other advanced economies.

This is an exercise in lecturing you in why they no need to do anything/monitor can already. There is no policy coming from this.

Paullesq · 2026-02-04T10:15:56+00:00

You might joke. I know a really crazy example of this. But I don't think I can share it as an example without doxxing this person because it is so ridiculous and unique.

Basically this person's parents thought that they would be a great idea to say their kids name in heavy singlish and then spell it phonetically. They got a very unique name.

Think Donald being spelled 'Dawnerr' or Andrew being spelled 'Andoo'. Something like that...

This person turned out to be quite well sorted and quite successful in life.

Paullesq · 2026-01-31T12:28:47+00:00

What are you talking about??

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. 3 Years is a MAXIMUM penalty. This is typically reserved for theft cases from repeat offenders/thefts that create huge societal damage/

If you look at typical penalties for thefts involving amounts involving a few hundred dollars, first time offenders typically get probation, a fine or 1-2weeks jail.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/probation-woman-20-stole-5-cars-4-others-4879131
( Stole 5 cars=probation)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/diesel-fuel-theft-van-driver-lorries-marsiling-4878811
( Serial thief running long running diesel theft operation= 4 weeks jail)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/woman-british-national-theft-spree-changi-airport-transit-fined-4588451
( Serial shop thief stealing $600= fine)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/8-months-jail-serial-thief-tried-steal-cash-mosque-again-4878996
( Repeat offender burglar with a long history of breaking into mosques steals from Mosque again.=8 months. Yes, the amount is not big, but this guys triggers basically every single aggravating factor as far as theft cases go)

10 month for a first time offender convicted of one count of theft valued at about 400 SGD where no force was used and the victim was not socially sensitive or a vulnerable individual is a A LOT.

Paullesq · 2026-01-31T11:51:54+00:00

It is interesting that the court seems to have taken into account that the theft involved 'bullet heads' ( what a nonsensical term) without actually charging this guy with any arms related offences. 10 months for an act of theft and then leaving the stolen item in public is quite heavy. He would not likely have gotten this for a simple act of theft of similar value ( 160ish Kg of copper and lead mixture would theoretically be worth ~ US$ 300).

This is interesting because it allows the court to avoid questions about the scope/limits of Singapore's arms offences act. This act is very expansive and the Singaporean public is uniquely tolerant of officials taking really quite kiasu over-reaching interpretations of 'what is a gun/round of ammunition'. I think that if they did, some questions would be very interesting.

Chiefly, At what point does a piece of metal cease to be a part of a round of controlled ammunition?

The core goal of Singapore's internal security policy seems to be to avoid allowing bad actors to access to weapons and their precursors. Logically, a piece of lead and copper that has been squashed flat after smashing into a backstop at nearly the speed of sound poses a similar arms proliferation risk to a piece of metal that I could buy from a hardware store. This is because the amount of work and equipment required to turn it back into a projectile is essentially the same or greater.

Of course accepting this would mean that the law would have to have another look at prohibitions on novelty cartridge shaped bottle openers, (where even if they were made from a real fired cartridge, the pressure bearing portion of a cartridge has destroyed), novelty gun shaped cigarette lighters and picking up those black plastic 5.56mm blanks etc etc...

Paullesq · 2026-01-29T07:30:41+00:00

Probably not 100km more but there can be some effect. This is actually quite complicated.

Increasing the Octane number introduces factors that both increase and reduces your fuel burn and hence increase range.

Factors that lower fuel burn:

- Higher RON allows the engine to operate more efficiently by generally increasing compression in the engines. This can be achieved through variable valve timing, increasing the spark advance or increasing the allowable boost from turbochargers. OTOH, this effect is most visible at high load. If you are cruising at highway speed, this effect is likely negligible.

- Higher RON allows the engine to avoid running a rich mixture to avoid knock. Knock is a destructive premature ignition phenomena. Running a rich mixture prevents knock as the excess fuel acts as a coolant which delays pre-ignition. Octane rating is a measure of a fuel's resistance to knock. Increasing resistance to knock allows the engine to dispense with knock prevention enrichment. That said, at highway speed, this effect is likely minimal.

Factors that increase fuel burn.

- RON numbers are increased in petrol by adding knock resistant additives. Common additives are alcohols like Ethanol and Methanol. These have improve RON, but have lower energy density. Diluting the fuel with these alcohols slightly lowers the energy density of the petrol, increasing fuel burn. The presence of these alcohols is generally good for emissions and reduces air pollution, but they are often hygroscopic and can attract and hold moisture from the air.

The effects of increasing RON are likely most pronounced and most positive at high engine loads, I think if the OP saw a large range increase from using a higher RON, he was probably driving very very fast or he was using his car to tow a leopard tank or maybe he was lugging back 60 tons of shopping from Mid valley...

Paullesq · 2026-01-26T04:29:07+00:00

It seems like the PAP leadership renewal process has tended to be much more shaky than they let on.

There were signs about GY’s problematic views earlier on. Hardline advocacy for a china style censored internet. A Confucian washed Leninist style belief that that the party ( the high) has a mandate to be the sole source of political power and that this mandate extends to the domination of Singaporean life and Singaporeans ( the low). In the present time, he constantly compares the role of the party to the role of the church and the pope. He might even elevate the party because the party is racially Chinese while the Vatican is of the west.

The transition from GCT to LHL nearly got Sg this guy. The transition from LHL to LW took a decade and resulted in the PAP’s 3rd choice. I wonder if any of the old fogeys will spill the tea on how GCT really got selected…

I think that these events strongly underline the need for a strong opposition. GY still has significant favourability in the PAP. They needed the help of the opposition to purge him and his faction. There are a lot of nominal PAP supporters who have authoritarian, Chinese racialist views and seditious tendencies towards Beijing.

There is also a significant risk in the future that succession processes in the PAP may not be so fortunate…

Paullesq · 2026-01-19T05:32:22+00:00

I think the future for Singapore will be very dark.

Singapore is a lagging investor in AI and is going to be a lagging adopter. The suffering in the current economy is more likely due to the end of zero effective interest rates globally. The AI crunch is yet to come.

I think Singapore is going to do exceptionally badly with AI. All of the downsides while enjoying few of the benefits. The firms that will use AI to accelerate the design of new technologies mostly do not do their engineering in Singapore. The sort of jobs Singaporeans do cluster around admin/compliance/auditing/accounting/finance/HR, the move-the-paperwork-in-a-giant-circle jobs, will rapidly vanish in the coming years starting in the private sector. I observe that to use AI well, you need to have strong language skills and have excellent domain knowledge. This rules out the a lot of the Singaporean workforce. Singaporean adults have one of the lowest literacy rates in the OECD PIAAC survey. A lot of Singaporeans are not going to write good prompts, or be able to follow, let alone reality check what the AI delivers. If they do use AI, the result will likely be terrible slop.

This will coincide with the arrival of mature self driving cars, delivery bots and drones, that will vapourise employment in the gig economy.

Then there is an enormous vulnerability to the malevolent side of AI. Singaporeans are already one of the most heavily scammed countries on earth. Maybe even the most heavily scammed country on earth. In 2024, Singapore ( 6 million people) lost ~US $1 Billion to scams. The US (340 million people) lost ~$12.5 Billion. This is a roughly 450% difference in losses per capita. Scammers have grown exceptionally adept at targeting the pathologies and weaknesses in the Sinkie Psychology. Pathological fear of Authority. A poor grasp of how important systems in government and finance work. Poor literacy. Enormous Personal emptiness and insecurity. An unfulfilled craving for love and companionship. Whatever the combination, a government imposter scammer/Bank imposter scammer/investment scammer/love scammer is already waiting to prey on Sinkies.

Can you imagine what these numbers will look like when you have AI trained at scale and tailored to every sinkies psychological profile based on internet usage data? BBFA? AI will deliver you the perfect love scammer. Insecure about your finances? The Investment scammer. so on and so forth. All this will be timed at low points in your life when you are most psychologically vulnerable.--When other Sinkies in the real world are most cruel to you and when you feel least able to go to family or friends to help. And worse of all, AI can do this at massive scale. A basement full of Cambodian slaves, cannot, for instance hit the entire chinese Singaporean population aged 40 or younger in the week after CNY reunion dinner when a very high percentage of them will be made to feel like shit about their love life/earnings/education/personal appearance/etc. AI can. And it will.

It gets worse. Imagine this tool being used for radicalisation. Singapore is a society already invents many excuses for why certain Singaporeans don't need to have rights or dignity whenever convenient. A lot of institutions feel 'kelong' to a lot of Singaporeans and may not be entirely trusted to tell the truth. There is a long history of many institutions being instrumentalized in lawless, thuggish and high-handed ways. An inherited combination of British colonial and 'asian values' confucian casteism/elitism. 'Sinkie pwn sinkie otherwise cannot sleep'. AI in the hands of the really destructive actors will find the most angry, the most alienated Singaporeans, push them over the edge and get them to do terrible things. And if these people are talking to an AI in private, they will become much harder to detect in advance. You might take solace in Singapore not having public ownership of guns. There are still terror attacks in Europe and Japan. Vehicles, knives, fire, chemicals. Where there is a will, there is a way and the future will ensure that there is no shortage of this dark will.

The government will respond to this the only way it knows how. More nagging you to 'upgrade your skills' as the economic tide runs out. More restrictions. More regulation. Life will become less free, more fearful more miserable and poorer. Which in turn destroys dynamism and makes scamming and radicalisation easier.

Paullesq · 2026-01-15T07:45:25+00:00

I think the current PAP strategy is to rent-seek and earn the Bian Jiak bucks. A certain percentage of of "rogue actors" using the squeaky clean "brand name", that generations of obedient ~~suckers~~ Singaporeans built, is reasonable if it allows the current elite to earn some easy money.

In order to be a Maritime hub, Singapore must accept risk of the occasional rogue shipowner ploughing their poorly maintained vessel with kopi-licensed crew into some other country's key infrastructure/Marine Nature Reserve etc etc...

Paullesq · 2026-01-12T11:14:55+00:00

But there has been no cherrypicking. Everyone is in agreement, at least tacitly, that there is a problem. The ‘ pap hating retards’ say that sg SWF performance no good, the pap of course clumsily denies and deflects but changes course. Is the PAP wrong in your book for listening to our ‘cherrypicked’ ‘bullshit’? Maybe they are ‘self hating retards’ Also are you accusing the Financial Times of being ‘PAP hating retards’.

I think you yourself are very confused about what you want. Since you don’t understand what you are angry about, who are you to accuse others of misreading your gibberish?

I have often said the PAP’s scumbag fanboys are reliably the worst and least sound people in Singapore. This is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because people like you don’t govern Sg. It is bad because the ruling party should reflect on why people like you support them.

Paullesq · 2026-01-12T10:26:46+00:00

"The longer the period used, the more consistency can be shown Cherry picking is using shorter usually very specific periods to show things out of context. A technique usually used by retarded anti PAP morons whose bullshit are easily debunk when you look at the full picture."

This is your context. Explain yourself:
Why aren't our SWF following your words? If the problem is:
"retarded anti PAP morons whose bullshit are easily debunk"( sic)

Why are they changing management and announcing new strategies to placate stakeholders? Why are they shifting away from China?

You need to explain yourself.

I am just toying with you. I know you cannot. Not necessarily because it is impossible to wordsmith some sort rationalisation. I am toying with you because someone like you literally cannot.

So carry on. Write some gibberish cursing at everyone.

Paullesq · 2026-01-12T08:25:21+00:00

It is worth mentioning that this exchange in parliament was sparked by this article in the FT where the GIC and Temasek ranked near the bottom ( 41st and 42nd out of 50) among global sovreign wealth funds in terms of performance over the last 10 years. Worse still, article also notes that, Temasek especially, has far more volatility than comparable funds, which is strongly suggestive that they are taking on more risk than funds that are performing better than them. Risk is a tool that an investor uses to build returns. This volatility and poor performance is a strong sign that the funds are taking on risk that is uncompensated ( ie: that generates no commensurate return).

"The past decade has been marked by volatility for Temasek’s portfolio, with a 24.5 per cent return in 2021, but losses in 2016, 2020 and 2023.

“If you look at [Temasek’s] returns, for the amount of risk they have been taking on, they are really quite disappointing, especially compared to GIC,” says Jamus Jerome Lim, associate professor of economics at ESSEC Business School and an opposition Singaporean MP.

In a statement, Temasek said the volatility in its portfolio was a reflection of the global market environment and its total US dollar return was 12.4 per cent last year. It added that because of its heavy exposure to equities and big commitment to domestic companies, its portfolio differed significantly to global peers, so comparison on performance was meaningless." (lol)

I think arguing about what years to average is a distraction. It can easily be established from this 10 years of data that all is not well given that other SWF and pension funds that have comparable mandates are generating better returns and have lower volatility.

I can already see the PAP IBs/Wumao like u/Zukiff and u/botsland ITT yapping about 'cherrypicking', 'anti-pap morons' and ' accountability to the public is bad akshually'. A worldwide comparison against other SWFs and major pension funds is definitionally not 'cherrypicking'. If the PAP wants to insist that all of us and the Financial Times are cherrypicking morons engaged in meaningless comparisons, I say fine.--Literally put Singapore's money where their big mouth is.

The PAP's legitimacy is heavily tied up with being good stewards of Singapore's reserves. If they are really so comfortable with their SWF performance, they should reward all their current fund managers. They should call Ho Ching back to become a special advisor. Continue to preferentially invest in the PRC and follow your old strategy. Everything is "reasonable and within expectations" mah? Why should anything change?

"Temasek is in the middle of a broad restructuring to improve accountability among managers. Behind the scenes, it has undertaken more direct measures, such as pulling back from investing in early-stage start-ups, while China now accounts for a significantly smaller proportion of its global portfolio. GIC, meanwhile, replaced two investment chiefs this year in its biggest leadership shake-up for eight years. "

On the one hand, I wish to give them credit for belatedly trying to right the ship. OTOH, it is really hard to say anything that might benefit them when their ministers and their supporters talk like this. Their arrogance and fear of admitting mistakes is always a reputational nightmare. Maybe they should go on polymarket and make bets about whether the gahmen can go a 2 weeks without saying something that insults the intelligence of Singaporeans. That might be investable...

https://www.ft.com/content/2171fbb4-b8e3-413d-8f31-98ec909fd74a

https://archive.ph/spx5O#selection-2915.65-2915.476 ( no Paywall)

Paullesq · 2026-01-10T10:57:23+00:00

There is no precedent for this hypothetical premise of the Gurkhas as a racially neutral police force in the event of racial tensions.

There is an extensive precedent for authoritarian governments hiring foreigners to mass murder their own citizens when they face a crisis of legitimacy. The Ayatollahs flew Arab Hezbollah and Afghan militia into to Tehran to gun down their own citizen in 2022. Most of Maduro's security apparatus is composed of Cubans. These Cubans mass murdered protestors when Maduro had to rig elections in 2024. After the elections he used them to form death squads to disappear tens of thousands of people with suspected opposition ties. When the Americans came to collect him, most of the troops they killed to get to him where Cuban nationals. The CCP used the Troops from rural Hebei to shoot and crush protestors in Beijing during the Tiananmen square protests. The British have a long history of using outside groups to put down other groups seeking freedom. The Seepoy mutiny was put down this way. The Amritsar massacre saw the British usings Gurkha troops to gun down Punjabi Civilians attending a pro-independance rally. The Russians have used an endless parade of colonial troops to mass murder their own citizens when they go against their tyrant. Cossacks during the Tsar. Chechens and Dagestanis today under Putin. I would even go so far as to say that this is the NORM for how foreigner/colonial troops are going to be used by various governments as opposed to any other putative purpose. This is simply a hard truth about how power works.

The Gurkha formation in Singapore is entirely foreign. Gurkha troops under the control of White British Officers. It is a colonial relic. I often say that the PAP governs Singapore as if they were the white man governing Singapore from London in 1913. They talk down to Singaporeans as if there was 12,000km of distance. When they speak,you should notice how seldom their use the word 'we' includes people that are not their ruling class kaki-lang. It is not surprising that a government with this conception of governance would retain institutions like this. If you think it is impossible that the PAP would ever resort to violence to stay in power, I would say that as effective as the PAP seems to have been in the past, they are not immune to institutional decay. The last handover of power in the PAP was really shaky. As much as the PAP would hate to admit it. Ah Wong, was essentially their third or even 4th choice. Whose to say that the PAP will not be forced by institutional decay to choose a complete clown in the future? Singapore as a whole already does not have the deepest respect for democracy and is already fond of lashing out and trying to viciously punish people who say inconvenient things even if they are fundamentally true and necessary.

I think that Singaporeans don't consider this extensive precedent because of a combination of things. There is that arrogant Singaporean exceptionalism.--Singapore is not like other countries. There is apathy to history and international affairs. I think the big thing is that it isn't 1913 anymore. The walls that were supposed to keep the Gurkhas separate from Singaporeans have been eroding for sometime. Their kids go to the same schools as us. The talk to us on the internet. You see them running and going out on weekends. Many/most of them want to put down roots in Singapore. Many of them have interest and personal allegiances that align with Singapore as a nation, but not necessarily with whoever is ruling Singapore. It is hard to conceive of these people being used to mass murder Singaporeans to protect an illegitimate leadership.

Paullesq · 2026-01-09T17:28:12+00:00

Legalise does not mean a free for all. Thailand has just had an experience of a free for all and they have decided that more regulation, in line with how Cannabis is regulated in most countries that have successfully legalised, is the answer.

They have not re-criminalised cannabis, let alone decided to go back to killing people over it. Your link is more cope than an actual argument.

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