Part of why it matters for governments to invest heavily into infrastructure is not just about the public good nature of it allowing those investment to uplift the poor, or to increase the economies’ capacity. Infrastructure is long term, sized for the future demand, and takes time and effort to put together. These long term investments reflects a government and a community’s confidence in the future, as well as commitment to work towards that future together.
Infrastructure involves massive coordination and while the market is a greater coordinator, the market failure in the inability to provide the public good means that government will always have to somehow lend a hand into the project. They would not be able to take off by themselves even if there might be some kind of business case involved because the government may have to enforce some kind of monopoly and provide regulatory safeguards to prevent fly-by-night operations taking demand away from the main project. For example, investment into a new water supply network where the operator earns water tariffs from supplying the local populace may require the government to temporarily regulate the bottled water industry locally to facilitate adoption and make the supply network commercially viable.
Certain seemingly draconian actions might be necessary to make the infrastructure to be invested in some local monopoly, thereby enhancing its commercial case to attract the much needed financing. We previously thought about digital monopolies somehow taking and of course making money out of it by supplying digital products and solutions. Here’s another industry where you have to create a monopoly at some level to make it work out.
This week, I had to say goodbye to a large group of people with whom I’ve devoted quite a large part of my life to for some time. It was a happy moment though some might say it was sad to see me leave. What I really appreciated is being able to work with some progressive people to break through traditional barriers to get things done; or to suffer bureaucracy together with like-minded colleagues and try through the day anyways. People has always been central to the work I do; and people matters because they are ultimately the ones who makes things happen.
At the same time, I had quite a few reunions and gatherings with old friends whom I’ve walked alongside a long time ago, in school, projects, and other groupings. We recounted the old times, found out about each others’ recent endeavours as well as up-and-comings. It made me recognise that farewells were never for good when it comes to such friendships and connections. More importantly, it is your choice to keep in touch, to create the opportunities and possibilities – by joining them or starting your own adventures.
Unfortunately we cannot always take everyone with us when we embark on new adventures. And we will often be joined by new adventurers along the way. What is interesting however is that once we crossed paths, we are essentially walking together at some plane, whether we like it or not. Because we can always check in to find out how each other is walking. We can use that to compare status, or we can use that to cheer each other on and show one another new possibilities and new ways to walk.
Tim Ferriss, famous for the idea of the 4-Hour Work Week was working his life away selling a cognitive performance enhancing drug and wanted to start taking away some of the workload he had. With the customer service team, he was originally making decisions on unusual sales cases (urgent shipping, special customs forms, etc.) where there’s some costs involved.
He first allowed his frontline team to make decisions if it involved costs of $100 or less. And then he increased to $500 and $1000. And for each of the cases, the details will be documented, to be reviewed weekly, but then the frequency changed to monthly, and then quarterly, then almost never. One of the things he realised in that process is that “people’s IQs seem to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them”. Why is that?
Ownership and respect. When you empower your staff like this, they are given bigger shoes to fill – just big enough to make them uncomfortable and help them grow each time. That ownership will give them space to grow and the respect from entrusting the work will fuel their growth. What we commonly think of as ground people acting ‘stupid’ is often just the result of fear, and the lack of respect from leaders. Our cognitive functions end up being devoted to too much ‘mind-reading’ (what does the boss want? what would he want us to do in this situation?) as opposed to actual problem-solving (what does this case require of me? how do I move things forward?). As a result, we can appear to be stupid or make really silly decisions.
So I updated my web page design and made it probably a bit more minimalistic. It now looks a tad bit more like Medium. And hopefully encourage me to write more articles there – the longer form ones. At least long by definition of a web article. This design might be a bit more mobile-friendly as well, which might suit the audience I’m now targeting: young millennial civil servants, professionals, entrepreneurs looking to create the future. The new theme I’m using is Seedlet; and it probably helps that it is updated to integrate the new WordPress block editor system.
I wanted to say something about how the world of digital products has changed the way we consume the latest product – in the sense that the product gets ‘updated’ across the board. For example, all WordPress.com users will have the block editor when it eventually gets rolled out. The problem is that we don’t technically have a choice even if we don’t really want it. This is both a good and bad thing.
For stuff we want, that solves our problems or improve our performance related to exactly we had bought that product for, it’s a plus. That way, you don’t have to increase your expenditure on it; and you’re probably just paying the same subscription fees. So the payment basically comes from you staying on the service, or getting more sticky with it.
For features or functions that we did not want, or prefer not to have, it’s like getting something we didn’t sign up for. Even if implicit in the consumption of the product at the beginning, we have already given the rights for the company/provider to force us to take on whatever they gives us later on. In some sense, digital product/service providers who are running a subscription business basically has a pretty strong local monopoly over you.
Just pointing that out. So that we can try to make sure they ‘don’t be evil’.
When I was young, and we play in the school playground, there will be fights around me; sometimes they involved me. And when asked why the fight started, the aggressive kid would say “he did this to me”. Then the other guy would say “accidentally” – and then the comeback from the aggressive kid, “no, he purposely one” (pardon the Singlish). So apparently, ‘accidentally’ is an excuse and ‘purposely’ is the retort to suggest intentionality of the perpetrator and hence justification for reaction.
So ‘purposely’ seems like one of the early English word we learnt as kids in Singapore – and whose meaning we know. But maybe, it was also used largely in a negative context and hence it seemed to me that we subsequently live our lives less ‘purposely’. Maybe, like the kid who ‘sparked’ the fight, we prefer to live ‘accidentally’, so that when bad things happens, no one can blame us. We can finger-point to our lack of intentionality, and just wriggle away.
Maybe, our culture has driven us to be more afraid of mistakes and failures, than our desire to discover our purpose. But the question, as we go through this slog in life is: are you working hard to avoid failures or working hard to achieve what you want?
So perhaps it’s time to teach your kids to say ‘No, I did that accidentally at first; but I did retaliate on purpose because this aggressive guy decided to start a fight. I’m sorry for being part of this mess’. Teach your children to own their mistakes and express their intentions. Stop them from hiding under ‘accidents’. And how do you start? By being purposeful and intentional yourself. Because, your children probably picked that cowardice up from you, purposely.
This article is being read and recorded for readers here to increase accessibility of my writings and also to prepare myself to start a podcast that is currently in the works. Note that the written article is not an exact transcript to the reading.
So 2020 was truly challenging for many economies. First we had a global pandemic which by itself, was really a healthcare crisis. It threatens to overwhelm the healthcare infrastructure of many countries including the most developed countries. The response of the government to proceed to lockdown mode, which created a bit of an economic crisis as the force shut-downs dampened demand severely, threatening a whole lot of jobs. So they then have to mount a secondary response to the impact of the primary response of lockdowns.
And that was unemployment benefits or at least wage subsidies to large employers to keep jobs and hence businesses breathing. The stimulus became the ventilator for the economy as Covid-19 continued to spread and impacted global supply chains, air travel, jeopardising much-needed tourism industry in many countries.
Being able to put together a giant budget to pump-prime the economy is an opportunity for putting down investments which would have much longer term positive impacts on the economy. For most developing economies which lack infrastructure, there’s a encouragement from the Multi-lateral Development Banks to explore an ‘infrastructure-led recovery’; especially to take advantage of the low-interest rate environments to take on more debt from the international markets.
Most of these points are probably theoretically true but in reality, to invest into large scale infrastructure takes time, political will, and support from population who will not see the benefits of the infrastructure until much later. The immediate job creation angle will be important and there has to be trust that the budget is not being overly strained. The ability to first obtain that supply of capital at low price, while sizing up demand for the infrastructure at a time of lockdowns, uncertain future is extremely challenging. When we lack the alignment of these key ingredients, projects don’t take off. Even when great ideas are there, the financing appears to be available and there is a compelling vision for the infrastructure. And I wonder if this is the reason for how the KL-SG HSR project came to end in a whimper.
Instead of thinking of infrastructure as a ‘means’ of recovery, we should abandon the whole notion of recovery. People die from covid, businesses shut down from the lockdowns. Economies reconfigure. And there really isn’t ‘recovery’ per se. We ought to confess that the original system of the economy that relies on sectors like tourism, aviation, or other face-to-face services have their inherent weaknesses; hence there’s a need for us to keep building up our resilience.
And often, resilience comes from creating slack in the economy, from increasing supply capacity, and making room to grow newer industries. Infrastructure is a good way to do that; especially infrastructure that allows more business activities. In a safe-distanced world, we may move away from trying to exploit agglomeration economies, so building strong connections and logistic networks will be important. The story for the infrastructure needs to be well-thought out and aligns to a greater vision of the district, region, country. Infrastructure need not be part of a recovery or growth. Singapore successfully made infrastructure development part of our story, part of our culture. We’ve build a story around infrastructure as part of livelihood that contributes to the community if the community is willing to contribute for it. Planting that in the consciousness of people is important.
Had a small gathering with just a handful of high school friends late last year (still in Phase 2 reopening in Singapore anyways) and the conversation drifted to social commentary about our generation of Singaporeans and how we step forward as a society. I talked about the idea of having inherited the narratives of our parents and the boomers, gaining that awakening that empowers us to write our own story instead.
One of them brought out the point that most of the Chinese migrants who came to Singapore and whose descendents now form the majority of the population here were ‘coolies’ or manual labourers who came to Singapore to seek out employment opportunities and a better life. The mindset really was to find a boss to serve, and gain a good life through that loyalty. Life was basic and more about survival than really thriving.
Generations later, the bar for living standards have gone up, and so have expectations of how much you achieve and how much you need to live on. But has that coolie mindset changed? Are we still just trying to follow directions to a better life? Are we thinking independently and by ourselves? Are we looking to continue to use resources at our disposal just for ourselves or to make the future a better place?
This article is being read and recorded for readers here to increase accessibility of my writings and also to prepare myself to start a podcast that is currently in the works. Note that the written article is not an exact transcript to the reading.
Audio Article: Coolies, Generations Later
Meanwhile, you might like to check out some really amazing recoloured photos of historical Singaporeans here. Get a sense of the hardship they went through and what life really means for them.
In 1950, the life expectancy of an average Singaporean (that is, someone living in Singapore, rather than having the nationality since the nation technically did not exist yet) was around 58 years. By 1965, it was at 67 years. So when my parents were born during that period, their parents, don’t expect to be able to grow old enough to care for all their grandchildren. Most of them would expect to retire around 55, or 60, and then spend less than 10 years in retirement before passing on. Should they die younger at around 50s, their children pretty much should be able to take care of themselves.
Today, the figure stands at 84 years. So not only can you have kids later. You can parent your kids for longer. Instead of training them for independence, you train them to hit the society’s metrics for success and support them with all the resources you have. Often, you use them as your further trophies in life and psychologically co-mingle their success with your own. This psychological dependence on the child’s relative performance vis-a-vis their peers reinforce their dependence on you. After all, to win your affection requires them to do better at violin classes and who else is going to drive them to the classes?
I wonder if anyone would study the cultural impact of having most of our lives lived with surviving parents. This means that the prevailing ideas, thought patterns of our parents actually might have greater influence on us than previous generations. The impact of the boomers’ mentality and mindset persists longer than most other generations, sustaining the franchises of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. Yet our generation also face continued fast pace of change; and so we face greater tension than previous generations in terms of trying to manage the force of the resistance to change, and the onslaught of it.
So the irony is that while people are claiming that children no longer have much childhood – or that their childhood ended prematurely, I’d argue that childhoods are getting longer, we are creating more childlike adults who have not really gained independence, and parenthoods are getting longer than what is good for the children.
This article is being read and recorded for readers here to increase accessibility of my writings and also to prepare myself to start a podcast that is currently in the works. Note that the written article is not an exact transcript to the reading.
I’ve been posting on my Instagram account daily inspirational quotes. So I decided to challenge myself to blog daily as well. This would mean that my posts might no longer be as long, and I’d be focused on sharing interesting short snippets of ideas. Longer entries might end up going on to my Medium page before eventually being made available free on my blog.
A couple of months back I got slapped with a hefty “fine” from Citibank for paying my minuscule bill late. I did a little rant here, but tried to address some of the unsustainable issues underlying the business model. I subsequently wrote in to try and cancel the card, citing the episode as my key motivation and also highlighting that the company needs to learn to change their culture and focus on serving the customer rather than beating the competition.
The longer I work and live in the world of business, the more I find it absurd that we accept companies doing things to make a profit rather than the serve their customers. After all, shouldn’t profit be the by-product of a job well done?
In December 2020, just before the extraordinary year ended, I got slapped another charge – this time from my telco, M1. I overshot my mobile data quota by 500MB and was charged $12. I read on the bill in fine print that additional data above my plan are chargeable at $10 for 10GB. So I called them up and asked them how they calculated the surcharges on my bill. They said, the extra usage cost is $12/GB (or part-thereof) when I do not go into my app and purchase the 10GB bundle. So even though they could just charge me $10 for 10GB on my bill, they introduced that additional step so that if I don’t monitor my usage, they could charge me at $12/GB.
I told the call center operator to submit my feedback that it doesn’t make sense to try and profit from the customers’ mistakes and what they designed seemed like a deliberate attempt to trip me up. I would not dispute the charges but this experience certainly left a sour taste for me.
So businesses, think again. If serving your bottom line is number one, then you truly deserve to be bottom.
This article is being read and recorded for readers here to increase accessibility of my writings and also to prepare myself to start a podcast that is currently in the works. Note that the written article is not an exact transcript to the reading.
One of the things I’m going to focus on personally is working for the right rewards. And for me, it’s incredibly encouraging when my blog posts or articles generates discussions and new ideas. To me, that is making a difference in the thought process and growth of people around me and even those readers distant from me.
2021 represents a very interesting new step from me as I stepped out of my comfort zone even more to be more conscious about the most critical question facing millennials living in a world that the boomers have built: “Do I stand and watch the show saying ‘this is not my idea’, or do I go out there and create the future that I want to see?” I could play the game that the boomers created and continue perpetuating a culture I find myself in – it would be immensely rewarding in the traditional sense – there is proven sources of prestige, of some financial rewards, and pat on the back by those well-established within the system. But I could also start changing the culture, changing the game, and work for the reward of a better future for my generation when we are older, for a better world that I would want my kids to live in (if I ever have kids).
We need to start getting people to work for the right rewards. Often we care too much about just the outcome and we think that it doesn’t matter as long as we structure the sticks and carrots to nudge those people to the right behaviours. Over time, we might find diminishing marginal returns. And over time, we might be damaging the culture. Children who get paid reading loses the chance to learn to read for the pleasure and love of reading. Using monetary or other rewards for steps recorded in trackers encourage gaming of the system. Let’s stop using temporary fixes. Let’s try to create a culture that allows us to progress as a society, and not to encourage gaming of the system, or cause people to turn against one another – all for the wrong rewards.
