This is probably the second time I have posted videos of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I always thought he is just a comedian, but goodness gracious, this man is smart, well-read and very very sharp. In comparison, the comedians we have on TV back here are really really pathetic, though admittedly it has been years since I bothered watching guys like Jack Neo and Mark Lee on TV and surely they must have improved, there is no more downside left!

I am still wondering though - if country X is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and country Y is, then in a war, is country Y bound to treat their prisoners of war from country X as prescribed under the Geneva Convention?
( Watch the videos! )

I don't really understand why this is considered a comedy - unless it is a tragi-comedy?

This line by Jon Steward about what he assumes the press should be applies to Singapore too, don't you think?

I’m under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I’m under the assumption that you don’t just take their word for it at face value. That you actually then go around and try and figure it out.




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One of my bosses used to tell me "numbers don't lie". I never agreed, because I always thought numbers are a lazy shortcut that hides or fudges the underlying assumptions. I had an absolutely horrendous experience with my Finance, Economics and Statistics modules of my post-graduate programme, because I just can't buy into this whole "everything-is-explained-through-formulae-and-numbers" argument that everyone seems to accept unquestioningly.

Anyway, this is a lovely quote from an article I came across that sets out quite well what I always thought:

"In the world of finance, too many quants see only the numbers before them and forget about the concrete reality the figures are supposed to represent. They think they can model just a few years' worth of data and come up with probabilities for things that may happen only once every 10,000 years. Then people invest on the basis of those probabilities, without stopping to wonder whether the numbers make any sense at all." (emphasis mine)

I do not really agree that quants are the root of the credit crisis, or that we should pin the blame on one man who came up with a deceptively simple formula (I don't think it is simple, but that is just me). Heck, the root of this crisis, like all crisis is human greed, that blinds us to some fundamental truths.  One thing I am glad about though is that this hopefully marks the beginning of the end of the blind faith in numbers.

A cab driver asked me the question above one morning when I was rushing to work (Friends of mine will know that I am hardly human in the morning, chirpy creature I may be in the afternoon or evening or night). I brusquely told him that the money has never been there - it's all hot air. He did not believe me.

Anyway, I came across the article below from the Associated Press that tries to explain the same thing.

( The Case of the Disappearing Money )

A lady wants to buy Singapore Government Bonds, and was offered a structured product and told that is a bond????? Good grief.

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/10/more-than-1000-people-at-speakers-corner/

I took a cab down to the office today with a virtuous view of completing my outstanding work. Haha. That did not work out too well.

Anyway, the cab driver has this idea that the credit crisis will not affect Singapore. I asked him why and his view is that the Singapore government will ensure that everything will be fine, that none of our local banks will collapse etc. I dryly pointed out to him that Singapore is already in a recession and that people have lost their life savings in those structured products marketed by the very same local banks he is so confident in. He just shrugged my comments off and went on to talk about how the China banks will be in trouble because they hold so much US dollars. The blind faith is touching and an indication of just how much goodwill the government has built up with its people over the decades since independence. I hope, I really hope that the faith will be justified.

I was talking to my boss about a potential hire earlier this week, and while he agreed that we will hire strategically, we are not in need of manpower. Which is fine, and I agree with that assessment. Of course, he had to wait until I was sipping from my can of Coke Zero when he added -  "we do need to hire for manpower in approximately a year and three months' time, unless I manage to find you a tall, dark and handsome man before then ....". I choked on my Coke Zero.

I don't like Coke Zero - it is sweet without the kick of real Coke.

( Of Ill-Health & the Lousy MAS Response to the Structured Products Debacle ...  )

OK, I admit it, I am starting to get rather concerned.

( Worrynut.. )

A suitable poem for the occasion, even though it was written in 1919.

( The Gods of Copybook Headings )