From across the yawning gap, the wide chasm Of irretrievable Time, I watched this Lion of a man hold his people in a Roaring trance: his eyes ablaze, his voice in Firm, unshakeable command: exhorting, Cajoling, pleading, teasing, commanding. Teaching his people, teasing out the facts Of a hostile environ in which their Red dot is ensconced: uneasy, wary. Informing them of glory, great heights scaled, Warning them of complacency, of ease. He growls, roars, thunders like an Asian Jove, Like a Confucian father to cowed sons. Tells them to buck up, work t'wards, fight against, March onwards and upwards, Sisyphean. He says, "Even from my sickbed, even If you are going to lower me into The grave and I feel that something is going Wrong, I will get up." As I watch him on Stage, from the corner of my eye, I keep Watch for the angry ghost of Lee Kuan Yew.
On Pitying the Ringgit
Pity the Ringgit,
down to its worst against the
Singapore Dollar.
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #5
- The Government is tabling a bill to raise Malaysia’s statutory debt ceiling from 60% to 65%, in order to fund stimulus measures to help Malaysians get through the pandemic. I think this is timely, and much needed. What is not clear, however, is whether this is a temporary or permanent raising of the debt ceiling (the title of the Bill suggests that this is temporary, but this is not made fully clear), and whether there is a clear plan for Malaysia to bring its debt levels back down to below 60% once the pandemic is truly over. We must not allow emergency measures to become a slippery slope that drives our nation’s finances into further indebtedness, especially after all the losses that we are incurring over the 1MDB looting.
- While the debate in Malaysia’s parliament over raising the debt limit looks to be perfunctory, the United States seems to be spiraling into yet another bout of partisan bickering over its own debt ceiling. Madness? Yes. But this is the blowback that the US political class has purchased for itself when it walked blindly into the morass of the War on Terror, and the disastrous consummation of its flirtation with nativist no-nothingism with the Tea Party that had eventually led to Trump’s presidency. There is always a price to pay when you play with extremism in the pursuit of narrow parochial interests.
- Here’s an interesting and totally expected thing that usually happens when you conflate a succession race with a plan to recover from a pandemic: the politics will almost always get in the way. What is Singapore thinking? Like mentioned in the article, this is not something that would have happened during Lee Kwan Yew’s time. Another chink in the armour, then, for the PAP government under Lee Hsien Loong?