Because...

Because I've been fooled too many times already, and I won't be fooled again.

Because there's no deception worse than self-deception.

Because I won't unconditionally accept someone who takes but does not give.

Because one does not assess merit by all the wrongs I've committed over all the right things you've done.

Because the number things you've done right by me has been painfully small that even THAT comparison is only marginally in your favour.

Because a man that you've taken shameless advantage of for 12 years no longer exists and is finally willing to stand up to you and cut you out of my life.

Because you are a bully, and I hate bullies.

Because you are a coward, and I hate cowards.

Because when push came to shove, you neither pushed nor shoved. You ran away.

Because I've lost friends because of you. Not one. Not two. Multiple.

Because, in spite of everything, I've given you chances that you never even recognised as chances.

Because you never said sorry, and meant it. Or even remembered that you said sorry.

Because you are a parasite of the worst kind.

Go run back to the people that you can deceive into thinking that you are a decent human being. You don't fool me. Never again.

Appendicitis and Accidents

Thanks to all who have been asking about my mom. She is fine now, if a little cantankerous.

I'm still not quite sure how it happened, except that at about 2 pm last Wednesday, I received a call from my dad on my mom's phone telling me she's being warded for appendicitis. That's the start of a supposedly-relaxing-but-actually-hectic weekend.

Apart from a scare with her blood pressure dropping like a rock on the first night (to which my brother quipped that my presence probably saved her life by raising her blood pressure), she is well and without complications. The doctor told her that they lasered off the appendix just in time.

She is now resting at home. I've moved back to live with her for a week. She and I exchange evil glares in the occassional battle of wills whenever I catch her doing something she isn't supposed to be doing. Lifting heavy things, puttering around needlessly, sneaking prohibited snacks away - the list is pretty endless. My dad and brother have declared themselves above it all.

Fun and games for the next week.

*************

I spent some time over the weekend on the Causeway. My SO and I were travelling up for the weekend to get some stuff done, and we got into a minor, bumper scratching accident.

Which should have been resolved easily, except that (i) I was in a murderous mood by that time because of the long jam on the causeway and (ii) I really disliked the attitude of the guy when he got out of the car.

I have a thing against elderly men trying to take advantage of shock and awe to get a private settlement in their favour. I consider these guys bullies of the highest caliber. I can spot that kind of driver a mile away.

There are many ways to resolve the incident - some good, some not so good. My personal approach is that no matter how minor the accident, the first thing I will do is to check if anyone is injured or in shock. Honestly, there is no telling how minor or serious a fender-bender is until you check for injuries, and I never take this shit for granted. Then and only then do I check the damage to the car.

This particular elderly man didn't. He opened in the most politely aggressive way possible short of actual yelling - he asked immediately to see the license and registration of my SO, but without offering his own. This is a very subtle and firm indication that (i) he wants to be in charge of the process and (ii) that you are the one at fault, thank you very much.

All this got my blood boiling, so I got out of the car and started my discussions with him by pointing out to him that it wasn't clear cut that my SO was at fault.

Thing degenerated pretty rapidly from there. My offer to let our insurance companies settle this was refused, on the grounds that my SO was driving a Malaysian car - another indication to me that this guy just wants a quick settlement in his favour that I wasn't willing to give at that stage, seeing that (i) he was asking for quite a bit of money for small damage and (ii) I'm pretty sure that this guy was at fault even though the insurance company would probably disagree with me.

Seeing as he was unwilling to let the insurance settle this, we started the blame game, and ended with him threatening to scratch my SO's car here and now - just as an ICA officer was walking towards us, and well within earshot of him.

Things went south quickly once I asked him very loudly and clearly if he was threatening me in front of a uniformed officer. The ICA got involved and referred the matter to the Police. The Police got involved and tried to defuse the situation - which wasn't happening because Elderly Man was insistent that he did nothing wrong and said I was accusing him of something that he didn't do.

Except he did. Except that what he told the officers and what he told me were different things. Except that I had a very low tolerance to people who will twist what happened to their advantage and appear the victim. So I repeated what he said again. Loudly. In front of the police officer, who was valiently trying to calm both of us down.

My SO stepped in and defused the situation, by telling me to shut up. By this point, I was damn sick of hearing this guy go on and on about what a gentlemen he is and how all he really wanted was an apology (which was absolute bulocks - he never mentioned an apology until much later). I went down to the ICA station and got down the name of the officer who might act as a possible witness.

After I got back, I found out that my SO had settled the matter amicably, with neither side admitting fault or paying the other. We exchanged numbers, and I listened to a whole load of shite from Elderly Man about being gracious and not telling police officers that I had been threatened. I wisely shut up this time, and just let it go, given the matter was already settled.

Elderly Man, if you're reading this, bullocks to you and your fake integrity. If you had any at all, you would not have acted the way you did. If you want to try anything funny, I want you to know that I still have no qualms about making a police case over what you said.

Let's see how much integrity you have when the police get involved in this.

The Minibonds Continued

I've been reading some comments on Tan Kin Lian's blog post, here and here.

Some of the points that I have raised in my post have been addressed by the various commentators on Tan Kin Lian's blog. To summarise, the points are:

1. That the Minibonds were marketed in a way that did not fully disclose their risks; and
2. That the differences in interest rates between fixed deposits and minibonds were so small that no sane person would have taken the risk of credit default just to get that extra returns if the risk had been properly disclosed.

I have two responses: hindsight bias, wilful ignorance and self-serving bias.

*************

Yes, I agree that there is some level of misselling involved in the Minibonds. However, I also think that there is some level of misselling involved in EVERY structured financial product out there. What makes the Minibonds so special?

I think that the differences in interest rates between fixed deposits and Minibonds is a fair argument, but one that is ultimately tainted by hindsight bias. Essentially, the argument is that investors who sought a safe investment invested in this product because they thought Minibonds were safe. And now that they are proven not to be safe, they want their money back.

The problem is, back in 2006 - 2007, Minibonds WERE thought to be safe. No one who bought the Minibonds back in 2006 - 2007 that Lehman Brothers would go under.

My question here is this: Did you really think that the increase in returns for the Minibonds as compared to the FD would come for free? If you didn't, then congrats, you made an error of judgment, and have no one to blame but yourself, but at least you have the moral courage to admit to yourself that you took increased risk for increased returns.

However, if you thought that you essentially got a free lunch, then it would probably be because you thought the credit event would never happen. Except it did. And you cannot possibily be in the wrong because, well, you're not.

Except that you are. Because what you are doing is looking at the investment with the benefit of hindsight, realizing that the investment were not as safe as YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE, and grasping for every bit of wrongdoing available to absolve you from responsibility of your bad decision.

THAT is why I don't think the Minibond investors should have any more compensation than any other sort of investor - because they made the same error of judgment that everyone else made in the market, but they are getting absolved from their responsibility without admitting any errors on their own part.

That makes me sick.

*************

The second issue here is why I draw a distinction between Uncles and Aunties asking for their money back and every other investor. Uncles and Aunties have no capability of finding out what their risk profile is, while the average investor (presumably fairly well-educated) does.

The question is not whether the investors know about their risk profile. The question is whether they have the means to find out.

In the former case, the Uncles and Aunties don't. They are fully reliant on the banking-sales-persons to tell them what exactly their investment entails. In this case, the misselling involved has an aggravated effect, and it would be just and fair to compensate these people.

In the latter case, what we have is wilful ignorance. They have the option of finding out more about their investment instead of listening to everything their salesman tells them. Had this been a sports car rather than a financial product I suspect that this would exactly have been the case. Except it wasn't.

The sole concession I will make is that prospectuses aren't the most legible of disclosure tools. Still, a basic principle applies - if you don't understand it, why did you invest in it? You wouldn't do that for a car, or a house or any other major purchase in your life.

*************

Given these two factors, I will bring on my third point - that it is entirely possible that your average investor believes himself to be an innocent victim, even though he is not.

The problem here is that it is very human to intepret an ambigious situation to your advantage. As argued before, the situation is VERY ambigious. The banks are at fault, the individual bankers are at fault, the institution is at fault, and the individual investor is also at fault.

I believe that is what is happening in this situation: everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else EXCEPT themselves, in hopes that in the confusion, someone will relieve them of the burden of their bad decision.

*************

I do not believe these to be theoratical factors by far - I've argued these points from a very human perspective. I think talking to individual investors for the Minibonds saga is a surefire way of losing objectivity in this exercise - everyone is a victim in their own mind.

IF you want to be objective about this whole exercise, ask the important question - why are Minibond investors getting compensated while the buyers of other structured financial crap is getting diddly squat?

The Minibonds Issue

Warning: This post will contain unkind language and unkind generalisations. I make these generalisations because they are, by-and-large, true. Please do not email me with stories about how Singaporeans / Bloggers / Government / Bankers aren't actually like that. I'm not fucking interested.

*************

I've been following Singapore Daily for coverage on the Minibonds issue. I'm annoyed as hell because the coverage is basically:

1. The Government must do something!
2. The Government sucks because they are following what everyone else did!
3. Tan Kin Lian rawks!

I have no issue with praise for Tan Kin Lian. He did a good deed in the middle of a crisis, and should be commended.

I have a huge issue with the rest because, as always, it's myopic at best, an outright shirking of responsibility at worst.

****************

Let me start with this basic principle.

The Government owes you nothing, because they weren't the ones stupid enough to buy the bonds, you were. This basic principle holds unless you can show wrongdoing, which I will get to in a minute. For summary, this is directed not at the Uncles and Aunties that lost their life savings because of mis-selling. I'm directing this to your average greedy, ignorant Singaporean that wants easy riches but doesn't want to do the work to earn it.

Face it: you got screwed over because you were greedy and ignorant. You, the moron who didn't do basic research, who got swayed by snazzy salesmanship and aggressive selling. This information was available on the internet 2 years ago. Caveat fucking emptor.

You're the one that's getting a free ride out of this. You're riding on the coattails on sympathy for Uncle and Auntie to get bailed out of a bad decision. You don't deserve spit, let alone sympathy.

****************

To the bankers who sold this pile of junk - grow a spine and some balls and face up to the fact that you've rogered the pooch. About the only thing I'm happy about here is that you're now past the lawyer as the most hated profession in the world.

Learn the phrase product-driven sales and what it means. That means answering my mother's question about what happens in a Credit Event. Don't slink away, say "I don't know" and never return my mother's call. It's your job to know. Do your job.

(Full Disclosure: My mother refused to buy minibonds because the banker couldn't answer her question.)

One more thing: Don't give me bullshit about your commissions, incentives and pay structure. I know that your job is essentially a sales job, and like all sales jobs, they are primarily commission based. I also know that whenever a commission in on the line, all bets are off, so chances are, I believe that you did missell to Uncles and Aunties, because your commission is on the line.

Don't give me bullshit about industry pressure. You can always find another one. The fact is, you're probably in this line because you thought it would make you the most money. The fact that the banking sales culture is fucked up doesn't mean you have to be. That argument didn't work too well for the Nazi's either. (And a massive HT to Godwin's Law!)

****************

To the employers of these bankers, guess what? You screwed up too!

Look at that incentive structure of yours. Go on, take a good hard look at it and tell me you didn't design it to maximise sales while paying lip service to whatever corporate governance structure your lawyers / accountants / consultants slapped together to make the absolute minimum requirements required by law and commerce. I dare you.

****************

Government, you're not off the hook either.

You failed too. You failed in the basic fundamental principle of government, and you failed it because you've lost credibility.

You see, when you decided to unliaterally impose your massive pay raises, you were basically setting yourself up for failure. You can't live up to those expectations you've set for us in justifying those pay packages. No one can. Don't even bother trying because you will fail and look stupid for it.

The fact is, everything that has happened since then, from electricity hikes to Mas Selamat to Melamine is being blamed on you because you have set yourselves up as infallible leaders. It doesn't matter if you can't control these events. The fact is, Singaporeans will take every opportunity to strike out at you because you've set yourself up to be struck at. That is why Singaporeans will never be satisfied with what you do, because you've set yourself up so high that even you can't live up to those expectations.

I understand the fact that these pay packages are more to encourage the next generation of leaders to rise up rather than to benefit yourselves. Just because I understand it tournament theory doesn't mean everyone does.

How does it relate to this situation? Doing nothing and studying the situation may have been the best option, but you don't have that option because you've lost credibility. You've lost the faith of the people that you will do what is in their best interests. EVERYTHING you do now will be interpreted as a callous action designed to take money from their pockets and put it into yours. You have no buffer of good faith left, no emotional bank account to draw on.

****************

Now that I have ranted enough, I will give you my take on this situation.

On a practical level, Tan Kin Lian is right. The reason why the government will be drawn into any large scale issue like this is because, quite frankly, our access to the justice system sucks. There's no class-action mechanism, nor is there a contingency fee arrangement of any sort. Say what you want, but a combination of these two -is- necessary for large scale dispute resolution of this sort.

On this basis, what I suggest would be the best action for the government to do would be to set up some kind of expedited, collective arbitration process for this. Appoint a couple of independent arbitrators, a couple of counsel on either side, and let this thing play out.

The reason I'm suggesting this is because I don't want to see free-riders in the equation. I'm happy to restore Uncle and Auntie's money IF the sales tactics used on them were reprehensible (and I'm almost sure that at least some of them were). I'm not happy to see a greedy, ignorant Singaporean being relieved of the consequences of his decision.

This also has the added advantage of a possible scouting ground for future leaders. This sort of thing isn't easy to organise. It requires some level of community grassroots experience, or financial know-how, or legal know-how, plus a healthy level of community spirit (or sheer ego) all of which are shoe-ins for future leaders of Singapore.

My 0.02, as usual.

WARNING! RANT INCOMING!

I am sick of whiny players. No, really, I am.

I do not know what is it about Dungeons and Dragons in particular that brings out the worst in a player, but it does. I am not talking about hack and slash. I can tolerate that.

What I am upset about is how ill-behaved a Dungeons and Dragons player is when a rules call goes against them. Especially where there's a challenging encounter.

Here's the context. It's the last game I'm running for a while. I wanted to pit a young white against a number of new characters. I expected it to be a slaughterhouse. I've communicated it to them that I expect it to be a slaughterhouse, exactly because I know that they are not prepared for this PLUS they've expended resources reaching this point in the game that I thought was a really bad idea. For those in the know, they've expended their dailies.

So this group of experienced players, wanting to win, pull out all the stops. They get fairly creative in trying out new things that are not a part of the game system, which I try to quickly reward by improvising rules.

At the end of the fight (which ends in a slaughter, as predicted), the players start bitching about the rules calls that went against them and ONLY the rules calls that went against them, and that they could have beat the dragon IF the rules calls went their way, not taking into account that:

1. All throughout the fight, there were rules calls that were clearly wrong but in the players' favour that influenced the fight to their advantage.
2. I was clearly lenient in favor of creativity, but the bulk of the bitching was in the portion of the improvised rules encouraging creativity.
3. I get very irritated when someone selects bits of physics and rules to come up with the most advantageous rule set applicable to the situation. You either argue real world physics in its entirety or rulesets in their entirety.
   
4. IF I had wanted to make the fight unfair, I'd have had the dragon circle the top of the cavern blasting them with dragon breath after dragon breath once their only ranged attacker had been turned into mush.

Henceforth, I'm going to save myself player aggro and not run Dungeons and Dragons. Ever.

Angry Thoughts

What is the collective noun for idiots?

A flock of fools? A murder of morons? A star of simpletons?

Good lords, they just seem to multiply.

*********

What am I supposed to think when the only time you approach my family is for money? I had told you years ago that I do not support what you are doing already. Don't expect kindness when you have paid me and mine nothing but cruelty.

*********

What am I supposed to think? On one hand you've shown me kindness. On the other hand, you've delivered far less than what you've promised. How can you expect me not to be upset?

*********

What's wrong with them?! Can't they see that they are only rewarding short-term behaviour? What about those energy consumers that have consistently been using energy below the median? Is there no reward for the consistently responsible?!

(HT to Mr Miyagi)

*********

ANGRY!!

I Cry Defiance

You are my senior. You have only to ask, and I will follow.

Be careful what you ask for.

You can ask me to hurry up. You can take things easy. You cannot expect me to hurry while you take things easy. If I run, you run. If you walk, I walk. If I turn around and not see the baton there waiting in my hand, don't expect me to continue running.

You can ask me to hurry up. You can ask me to double check your work. You cannot ask me to hurry up while having to double check your work. If you want me to hurry up, I have to be able that trust you will do your job. I cannot hurry while doing my job and your job at the same time.

You can trust my judgment. You can question my judgment. You cannot cherry-pick which parts of my judgment to trust. My judgment is rendered in its entirety, after considering all the aspects in totality. My judgment is not rendered for your convenience, but your best interests. You take it, good with the bad, or you reject it outright for its flaws.

You can act in good faith. You can keep your power. You cannot keep your power while pretending to act in good faith. That is either hypocrisy or denial, neither of which I condone.

You can ask me to be detached. You can ask me to be loyal. You cannot ask me to be detached while being loyal. Detachment means I feel nothing for you, even loyalty. Detachment requires that I not be here, under-appreciated for what I do. I've given up greener pastures for my loyalty. Don't expect me to feel nothing for what I've given up.

Choose.

Motto of the Day

"Your incompetence does not dictate my sense of urgency."