Truetone phones began appearing on the market in early 2002. We got a Sony Ericsson phone from Singtel in 2003. Its default alarm-clock tone was a minute-long m4a file that would, over the next two years, wake me up almost every day.

It actually sounds quite pleasant, and I just rediscovered it on my hard drive (three phones later!), so now it's sitting in my iTunes library.

The first five seconds still make me wince whenever I play it.

I don't think I will stop being amused by the endless parade of mallards that surround my housing block every morning. Even if they do wake me up.

The geese, on the other hand, shit everywhere.

(an observation: the squirrels and ducks behave differently. Ducks will waddle away from you until they reach some unknown distance etched into their ancient dinosaur brain. They will do this even if you stop moving, and if they were busy doing something before you intruded - goodness knows what - they will waddle back if you leave. This makes for a mass of ducks waddling in anti-pursuit curves as you walk past.

Squirrels, on the other hand, flee if they see you moving. If you then stop moving they apparently forget about you, which makes it easy to sneak up on an unsuspecting squirrel. If you move, they flee in the opposite direction, even if you are moving away. They're not quite brave enough for squirrel fishing, I suspect, but I might try it anyway...)

Is it just me, or do my fellow Singapore-educated students use the phrase "per se" way too much?

Ultimately, much of economics seems to boil down to

1) most real-life companies are monopolies, and

2) the dynamics of an economy dominated by monopolies are complicated

When I log into the university network, I get a message of the form:

Good evening, Mr W Q Ng

You are attached to server: LIBRARY

or some such. This is how the Novell backend rolls.

The server name varies, probably for load-balancing. The names are usually pretty staid - LIBRARY, ECON1, HUMANS1, etc. But today I got the message:

You are attached to server: DRAENITE

Err, okay.

I just realized that The Lion King would make excellent royalist propaganda.

Mind=blown.

-1°C:

I read, with some surprise, that in 2008 the population of Singapore was nearly 1/3 foreign - 25% short-term foreigners on assorted permits, 7% permanent resident. I imagine that recent retrenchments have dented this somewhat, but this is a fraction that has been increasing and seems likely to do so (if anything, the Singapore government has now experienced the joys of being able to export unemployment).

Looking in my tea leaves, this is the future of Singapore. The government believes that its fiscally conservative policies are unpopular but constitute the reasons for Singapore's growth. It isn't likely to surrender further political control, but it does believe it will suffice to slowly resemble a welfare state (hence higher taxes and spending. Still well below West European levels, though) - the cynicism of Singapore's political ideology lends itself well to believing that people don't actually want freedom of speech, what they actually want is cheaper cars and housing.

In the past the government has chosen to remind Singaporeans of their greater interest in government austerity (only in Singapore do politicians get apparent success out of lecturing their electorate. Must be a cultural thing), but the higher and higher percentage of temporary immigrants creates another possibility. And that is: fund a welfare state based on income tax revenues generated by temporary foreign workers. Singaporeans receive steadily higher subsidies and the brain drain hopefully halts. Strict political and cultural control means that distinctions between locals and foreigners remain largely invisible. Any institutional problems that may arise are resolved quickly by mass revocation of work permits.

Dubai sells oil; Singapore sells real incomes that are higher relative to the region.

This is in a sense self-perpetuating as a strategy. Retrenching in a recession and employing in a bubble means that the worst excesses of either are eliminated; this stability of course comes at the cost of countries to which the unemployed return to. That such economic cycles tend to be global means that, relative to other nations, Singapore will enjoy unusually stable politics and economic growth - no incoherent populist spending and panic a la Kuala Lumpur circa 2008, for instance. This reinforces differences in regional real incomes.

The British apparently like their pastries and bread crumbly - all the loaves I buy here invariably shed crumbs everywhere, even from just removing a slice from the wrapper.

Bread in Singapore and Malaysia tends to have larger and fewer crumbs. I can't imagine why, honestly; just a difference in flour sources, perhaps?

The same economists who promote rational-choice theories of politicians - i.e., the idea that politicians only act in a manner that furthers their material self-interest, and any aberrations from this can be discarded as empirically insignificant - never promote rational-choice theories of economists, who would logically be sucking up to aforementioned selfish politicians.

Wonder why!

It is true that in practice most economic monopolies are capable of implementing some degree of price discrimination that restores Pareto efficiency. So monopolies are not typically as Pareto inefficient as classically taught.*

However, there is then a corresponding loss of incentive to work, so all we have done is shift inefficiency around. Consider the process taken to an extreme: since perfect price discrimination shifts all surplus to the producer, the consumer is left with none: therefore what incentive does the consumer have towards income? All of it is extracted by the producer!

In a situation involving only a few minor markets the effect may be minimal, but when it regularly involves large purchases like housing, higher education, or cars, then presumably there is a macroeconomic effect.

* and, of course, the real issue of monopolies - that they represent a wealth transfer from net consumers to net shareholders - is quietly swept under the rug by a misaimed focus on efficiency loss.

Because the US Republican party is nominally libertarian, it is also home to the fringe (but loud) strand of thought that insists that a gold standard is crucial to monetary and fiscal discipline. This apparently dominates libertarian rhetoric at the political level (e.g., Ron Paul), even though it is academically widely discredited;

Because this fringe believes in a gold standard, the Republican party as a whole is obliged to persistently accuse their political opposition of plotting hyperinflation, even though market data shows that 'the market' is not expecting inflation;

Because their political opposition is in power, such criticism is ubiquitous; therefore the Federal Reserve is obliged to exercise further caution on inflation;

Because the Federal Reserve is now excessively cautious, inflation targeting as a solution to the current recession is immediately dismissed, even though it makes the most theoretical sense to economists on both sides on the fence (c.f. Krugman, Mankiw +1).

How's that.

Packing.

When did I have two hwachong school ties?

Digging through the Straits Times archives is fascinating.

a sampler:

No respect for old people [LETTER]
The Straits Times, 24 September 1956, Page 6

No respect for old people
I agree with what Mrs. H. Tamplin had to say about the politeness of Singapore school-children. For five months I have travelled by bus every morning from Johore Bahru to Singapore. The bus (Green Bus Line) is always filled with children aged from 5 to...

Word Count: 106
Full article also available on microfilm reel NL1821

some things never change aye

Me and blym decided to go for a walk.



Roughly 20km.

Here it is on Google Maps. The tail end near Harbourfront seems to have been cut off, though.

About half of the Ulu Pandan connector network, then the Kent Ridge trail towards Harbourfront.

My handphone camera is terrible at taking pictures in low light. :(

I saw a typical shopper trotting around Giant today carrying a shopping basket in one hand and... an Acer Aspire One in the other. It was on, and open.

How she managed to juggle all that and still browse the potatoes I'm not really sure, but she managed.

dhamol
dacophan
motilium
loperamil

Hands-off signs, Google style: