A NATION SANS CONSTITUTION IS HEADED FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

A few days ago, two members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) proposed a bill to illegalise religious proselytization. In reality, it was a bill with Christians in their crosshair. It makes it illegal for Christians to encourage Jews to follow their religion under pain of imprisonment. The law considers "books, other printed literature, online articles, podcasts, or other forms of media that explains the life and ministry of Jesus and his message found in the New Testament" to be illegal.

For some reason, our state media did not carry the news. Is this not news worthy or is nanny state policy suppressing what government thinks is something that may upset the religious sentiments of the locals. If it is the latter, one wonders who decides and what goes into making the judgement call. This seems to be of some concern because it translates to a failure of state media to keep the public informed of very serious political developments in the hottest spot on the face of the Earth. 

On itself, the proposed bill is an imposition on religious freedom. In the current political context, it is a consequential development of a path towards a constitutional crisis for the country. Israel does not have the political spectrum of progressive Left and nationalist Right as the US. For 75 years since the founding of the state, it has majority of politicians who are centre Left and centre Right. Whatever the coalition parties of the government of the day, they have always managed to find middle ground. But not anymore.

The current 37th government of Israel is headed by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, better know as Bibi. To regain power by his Likud Party, Bibi had to clobber a coalition which included two radicals, Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party and Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power Party. It was a marriage between the Right and Extreme Right. Under this coalition, the rights of Arab Israelis and the Palestinian question, go to the back burner and the state will turn more Jewish. To get the coalition he want, Bibi had to negotiate away the store to his partners, retaining only Foreign policies and Defence under Likud. It appears Bibi's strategy was to carry a soft stick to form his government, but to act tough after that. 

Bibi was viewed as politically weak. Very quickly his weakness was put to the test. Some extremist right families of rabbis set up an outpost on a hill at Or Chaim. The Defence Minister ordered it dismantled, but Smotrich countered the order, confusing the police command. Bibi went tough and ruled structures that have no formal approval are illegal and should be taken down.

Unlike all other democratic countries, the state of Israel has no written constitution. The Knesset comprises of elected representatives who legislate the laws of the land. The Supreme Court oversees the judiciary. The justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by a 9-member Judicial Selection Commission. These 9 members are 3 from the executive (Minister of Justice, a cabinet member, and an MP), an opposition MP, Chief justice, 2 other justices from Supreme Court, and 2 members of the Bar. A selection can pass only with a 7 majority. In other words, the government has no control over the appointment of SC justices. 

In Israel, the Supreme Court balances the power of the government, and the Executive keeps in check the SC, by the power to legislate over objections. There is no written constitution to set the absolutes. This lays the ground for a constitutional crisis as each can over-ride the other. With Israeli ability to find middle ground, this has not been a problem for the past 75 years. Now, with the rabbinical extreme Right gaining political strength, comes impetus for various policy changes which pushes the envelope for more 'Jewishness'. The Bibi government's proposed judicial reforms will give the executive the power to appoint Supreme Court judges and constrain the court’s powers to rule against the government.  

The Jewish population is split demographically into the orthodox God-fearing group, and Liberal minded who may or may not profess any religious leanings. Economic and defence responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the Liberals who have for 75 years co-existed with the orthodox Jews by simply letting them be in their traditionalist ways. The proposed judicial reforms have drawn out protests on the streets. Now protests are nothing new in Israel and tolerated as a democratic country. But this time, something has changed. The Israel civilian army has been a stalwart of stability in the country as they have always remained apolitical. This time, they too have joined in the protests. For some, their protests have taken the form of not reporting for their routine training. For example, reservists pilots have been absent from their regular once a week training sessions. A new threat to Israeli security now looms.     

The power tussle between the extreme Right and Liberal elements leads to serious confusion in the government. Which side should the military and the police follow. This is an existential threat given the geopolitics of the region, in particular the rising threat of the new Saudi-Iranian axis and the weakening of the Abraham Accord. Hamas and Hezbollah in the north, as well as Iran, are testing the new weakness in the Jewish state.

Bibi himself seems to be the cog in the wheel, preventing what appears to be a national problem that could be easily resolved. There are several opposition liberal parties that could join the coalition and replace the extreme Right parties. These parties however, refuse to join with Likud to form the government as long as Bibi is there. Within Likud itself, personality politics is keeping Bibi in power. 

As to the proposed anti-Christian bill before the Knesset, Bibi has once again shown strength by rejecting it on Mar 19. The expectation for jetting the bill was high as its passage would alienate Israel from the powerful Jewish lobby in the US and 2.4 billion Christians from around the world. The judiciary reforms will be an entirely different matter as Bibi self-preservation is on the line with 4 corruption charges pending. The country looks set for a constitutional crisis.

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HOW TO CHECK IF SOMETHING FROM THE INTERNET IS THE TRUTH

Most people take the saying "..and the Truth will set you free" in a general sense.  Actually, Jesus said this in the context of explaining his divinity. he was sent by God, and He is the Way. 

In Ode on a Grecian Urn John Keats said "Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty. That is all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know".  Keats dealt with the idea of permanence. That which has permanence is Truth, which is Beauty. that is a fact treasured. To T.S. Elliot, Keat's famous line is meaningless. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem “Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare” reinforced the idea of Keats. Euclid, of course, is the most famous mathematician of all. 'Beauty' here refers to the idea of Truth, and Millay is saying that Euclid has looked at Beauty bare, meaning he has analysed it thoroughly, and confirmed it and it is crystal clear. The reference to "O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day" is that Truth is indeed Beauty, as true as Christ is the Truth and the Way.

But to us laymen, what is Truth? Learned men have dwelt on this for centuries and today we have not gotten any clearer. Drawing on many philosophical theories of Truth, such as pragmatist, coherence, identity, deflationary and correspondence theories, most people will still be nonplussed. 

Some time back, a good friend shared something he came across with our Whatsapp group. I pointed out it was most likely to be false. Friend asked how do I go about checking if something we see on the internet is false and I thought this is something actually worth sharing. How do we tell if something we read or see on the internet is true or false.

The movie Da Vinci Code is based on the eponymous novel by Dan Brown which is, I would say, inspired by the 1980s block-buster seller non-fiction book Holy Blood Holy Grail. The search for some mysterious treasures led the authors of HBHG to some pseudonymous documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. This cache of documents included a genealogical table of names purportedly to be elders of a society called Priory of Sion. The names included historical luminaries such as Isaac Newton, who were leaders of a secret group dedicated to protect the bloodline of Jesus. The documents were eventually tracked to a man called Pierre Plantard. Long after HBHG went to print, it came to light Plantard was a rascal with criminal records of fraud. It was all a hoax.

Like millions, I was fascinated by the book when it came out and failed to observe the insinuation and supposition, nor distinguishing the factual and the fact-ish, nor highly contested interpretations presented as established truth. This underlies the foundational requirement to discern Truth is a critical mind.  As the character Sir Leigh Teabing in Da Vinci Code said "the con of men runs deep". The HBHG authors did not set out to cheat. It is an interesting non-fiction, but not convincing under the microscope.    

A side track: Dan Brown actually lifted off HBHG to write his fiction Da Vinci Code. HBHG was co-authored by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Baigent and Leigh sued Brown for copyright infringement and lost. You cannot patent or copyright 'ideas'. This may be of interest to those following Jeanie Tay's case against the NUS professor who lifted her architectural ideas.  Is Jeanie's case copyright infringement or plagiarisation ?

Pierre Plantard forged and planted the documents physically in the library and hope for people to stumble across them. Today, just about anyone having the ability to post anything out there for whatever reasons, can do so easily. And these can be promoted and shared and amplified. In our internet world, it is now far more difficult for the ordinary folks to discern Truth when we are faced with hundreds and thousands of Pierre Plantards everywhere. 

Digital apps allow photos to be compromised easily, CGI creates crazy realistic videos. There are simple apps that allow you to create a conversation by simply using one single image of a person. One can make Abraham Lincoln come alive and sing Majulah Singapura. We now live in a dangerous world of doctored information. 

Take for example the following 2 videos:

This is a video advertising a ground-breaking device invented by a teenager that could drastically shave off electricity bills by 50%. It first appeared in 2020 and was widely shared. The energy saving device is still on sale online. (5 mins but no need to watch to the end)

This video shows who the teenager really is. (9 mins.) Interestingly, watch it when it talks about the use of nano graphene layer. This is already in your body if you have had the mRNA jabs.

We deal with things which are physical or abstract. With physical things, what is fact used to be absolute Truth. It is no longer so simple nowadays, as the above videos demonstrate. With the abstract, we have to deal with opinions. We used to say if the opinions were backed by scientific data, it is the Truth. Trust the science, so they say. Now with disinformation, misinformation and information suppression, scientific opinion is on shaky grounds.

There is nothing wrong with independent opinions. Everybody has a right to express their opinions. Opinions need to be contested in the market place of ideas, especially on medical studies. It is not an issue of Truth. You only need to appreciate 2 things - (1) Do not confuse opinion as fact. Even if Einstein makes an opinion does not make it the Truth; (2) Beware of those who have an agenda. The great lesson in the pandemic is seeing how medical professionals can be easily bought out or forced by Big Pharma and government to support a single narrative, even when objective Truth does not support their opinions.

What we really want to know is the Objective Truth which is something that corresponds to reality, independent of whether you agree with it or not. That sounds simple and straightforward, right? Unfortunately, people are coloured by individual perceptions, biases, agendas, and Truth tends to be subjective. At this moment in history, the cultural upheaval in the US has basically killed objective Truth amongst Americans.    

How then are we going to know what is the real Mccoy. The code to live by is no one is going to show you the Truth. You need to search for it yourself. 

I live by a simple guide. If I read or see something that I have doubts, but it is of no importance, then I simply ignore it. We all have too much things on our plate. If it is something I am interested in, I will try to authenticate it.

My first line of defence against falsehood is common sense. Anything that is highly improbable, is almost likely to be false. Take the above advertisement video for example. Wouldn't anyone want to have a gadget that cuts energy cost by 50%. Wouldn't such a gadget be in the market years ago instead of waiting for a 16 year old kid to invent it? This type of 'impossible' posts are in the millions in the internet, especially now swarmed by tiktok. 

Next I apply simple context reasoning.  This is interpreting the current input, ie what I read, view or hear, in the light of previous experience and knowledge. It calls into play both spatial and temporal contextual information which means placing the current input against a time and space context. This is where a person's knowledge base is key. Of course I am not an expert in a hundred fields, but like most people, I know many areas superficially and one or 2 fields reasonably well. Generally, I find 2 knowledge base that serves me well to understand developments in the world around us are History and Current Affairs. It is sad that our educational system has more or less abandoned History in pursuit of STEM curriculum. Without a knowledge of history, one is like a fish swimming in the water which it cannot see. As for current affairs, one needs to be well read. Unfortunately, most youngsters today learn current affairs from 10 second tiktoks or 144 character twitter feeds.

One needs to apply critical thinking to whatever we read, see or hear. This is the power of rationalising or walking through something logically. I apply 3 ways to how I reason things out:

(1) Deductive reasoning deals with certainty. I start of with a known conclusion and find the reasons to prove that conclusion. This is what some call the 'duck test'.

Remember in 2021 parliamentary debate on foreign competition in the job market, Lawrence Wong criticised the PSP's rhetoric on foreign talent as racist and xenophobic  When PSP strongly rebuted the allegation, the Minister said :

"Look - if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck"

(2) Inductive reasoning deals with probability, and yes, it's the so-called science and data-based. Bear in mind that science is not God. Data do not lie, it's the interpretation part that's tricky. If there is something that people has learnt in this pandemic, it's that even the authorities lie through mis-use of data.

(3) Abductive reasoning deals with educated guesses. Abductive reasoning is primarily to provide hypothesis for further studies. That is why I find no pleasure in presenting the common narrative. Instead I am motivated to always try to come up with an out-of-the box answer.. 

Very unfortunately, Singapore may have received accolades for our standards in educational system, but we have also been equally criticised for churning out students with low critical thinking skills. 

The above 3 ways of trying to understand what's before me are internalised approaches. Other steps I may take are :

Learn something about the authour.  Often the authour is a give-away. They could be pre-eminent in the subject, activists, mouth pieces of Big Tech, Pharma, Finance, etc. In typical cynical mode, I often perform a search for scandals of the name. This is a treasure trove that provides some understanding of the purpose of the authour. It is important to gauge if the authour is sharing information or promoting an agenda. Early in the pandemic, when the first Lancet report came out to promote the zoonotic theory, my name search told me immediately that it was a planted propangandist article. 

There are of course many people out there who writes the occasional hit pieces in their blogs. I am absolutely suspicious of all those famous journalists from the western mainstream media who have mostly turned into political hacks, mostly persuaded by lucrative payouts from liberal NGOs. But I have respect for those bloggers with specialist industry knowledge.

But the one thing that is beyond my comprehension is why do folks share articles with no names of authours. When I am in receipt of such articles or videos, I never waste time with them despite click bait headlines. 

Who checks the fact checkers. I do look up some fact checking sites, but only to obtain contrarian views which I will further try to authenticate. When it comes to politics and various contentious areas, such as the name Trump, vaccines, globalism, Ukraine, election integrity, etc, all, and I do mean ALL, fact checking sites are biased towards conservatives. The reason is very simple. Good guys do not plan to control your minds. The bad guys plan years ahead, every step, every angle they will cover. All those fact checking sites are funded by left wing or Democrat money, manned by leftist activists taking a cue call from some central think tank. Soros' money is everywhere. But that does not necessarily invalidate them all. They provide some balance to the excess from the right. 

I try to do some simple authentication.  There have been times where I wrote to the authours. My simple authentication is to look at 2 or more different sources of information. That's the least I can do. But this is getting harder. Big Tech search engines use A1 algorithms which will place the answers to your query hundreds of pages behind if it is not in line with liberal narratives. That is why for sensitive political issues, I use the Russian Yandex search engine.

Check out the website.  The old saying rely on trusted websites no longer holds. Mainstream news media have all turned into unreliable political hacks or have sold out to moneyed-interests. As for other websites, sometimes we can glean useful information that provides the answer to the motivation for the article or video. Sometimes I do a 'whois' search. This search will display certain registered information about the website such as who owns the site and contact details. Some sites may have a privacy setting in which case ownership and contacts are redacted. Generally, authentic sites do not have privacy settings on. Good guys have nothing to fear and want to show they are authentic. The bad guys do not want to be exposed. To do a 'whois' search, one place to go to is www.lookup.icann.org/en/lookup. Just enter the URL of the website. Note that the search is only on the first level domain name. Eg my site here is www.chem-post.blogspot.com. This is a second level domain name. Whois search is only possible on www.blogspot.com.

Do a reverse image search. This will throw up various places where the particular image has appeared. It is possible to track back to the source of the image, or it may provide useful places to investigate. In the advertisement video above, I did an image reverse check which eventually led me to the real teenager Alex Pinkerton.  It's very easy do do this. There are various sites that does this. To do this with Google, simply go to www.images.google.com and this page appears:

Simply copy the URL and paste into the search box and click the camera icon. Alternatively, drag an image into the search box, or upload a filecopy of the image from your computer and click the camera icon. 


If you think all these are too bothersome and laborious, well it's a question of how much you value Truth.

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WHAT THE BANK CRISIS IS ALL ABOUT AND SHOULD SINGAPORE BANKS BE CONCERNED

While it was not exactly the Black Monday Mar 13 that some feared, the banking sector in US got hit hard and the dust has still not cleared. What triggered the whole thing was not the bank run at Silicon Valley Bank, but investors who got spooked by private equity capitalists who advised their portfolio companies to pull out of the bank. As panicky investors dumped SVB the share price dived and depositors rushed to the bank to withdraw their cash.

Last week, apart from SVB, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank also collapsed. First Republic was similarly situated. Signatures problem was due to its exposure to crypto. Elsewhere, Credit Suisse is in big trouble. Its problems are due mainly to its investment banking business and several legal cases it is facing.

It's amazing how investors always follow the herd. Warning signs have been there for months. The 2 charts below never fail to explain. Rising interest rates during an inflationary time always cause a liquidity run as money rebalances in the market. It's as simple as that.

This is easily proven from data provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance corp. The chart below shows in the last 3 quarters of 2022 nearly US$700b flowed out of commercial banks.

The oft mentioned unrealised losses on long term securities due to rising interest rates are also shown in FDIC data. This always occur when the yield curve is inverted, which started sometime in April 2022. As short term rates rise, those holding on to long term securities will suffer valuation losses. The chart below show the commercial banking sector were showing huge unrealised securities losses. As at December 2022, US commercial banks had unrealised losses on combined Available-for-sale and Hold-to-maturity portfolios totalled a whopping US$600b.

The US$600b loss as shown in the chart is only unrealised loss on securities valuation. It does not necessarily translate to losses to the banks. Change in interest rates is a market risk and banks manage this risk. For example if a bank has an asset US$10m 10 year bond, but it has a long term 10 year borrowing, both written at about the same time, then it is squared. It does not suffer any losses. So do not panic just yet.

In the case of SVB, its unrealised securities loss was US$15b. SVB had US$173b long term securities, but only US$15b long term borrowing. There was a big mis-match. Their off-balance sheet did not carry much derivatives that means the huge securities holding was not hedged. The loss is real although not yet realised.

In my blog 27 Jun 2022 "How a bankrupt Fed cheats with creative accounting" I made an educated guess the Fed is hiding an unrealised securities loss of US$1T. That's an incredible number. As I explained in my blog 27 Jun 2022  "In defence of MAS S$7.4b losses - all central banks have nowhere to run",central banks live with the consequences of their monetary policies. This is true in the case of forex market intervention. For interest rates, it is possible to hedge. We don't know if both the Fed and Mas has done so.

MAS has commented that the US banking crisis do not affect banks in Singapore. In as far as the impact of rising interest rates on securities portfolio is concerned, the MAS is in a position to appreciate the situation. Banks in Singapore provide several reports to MAS. 2 of these reports are worth mentioning. (1) Maturity gap report; (2) Interest rate gap report. This allows MAS to monitor maturity and interest rate gaps or mismatches. Banks will be hauled in to explain when these gaps grow too huge.

The MAS however, got too ahead of itself to say the crisis does not impact Singapore. At the moment, the US regional banks are hit the worse. But if any international commercial banks in the US collapse, it will definitely hit Singapore banks. The failure of bigger banks will cause contagion effect in the financial markets because of counterparty risks. In the foreign exchange market the risk is minimised because a payment is offset by a receipt. It is in the money market and derivatives that will create great havoc.

Banks contain counterparty risks by setting internal limits. Each bank sets a maximum exposure they are allowed to trade with another bank by placing limits in each market such as FX, money market, derivatives, etc.

The Fed conducts stress tests periodically on the US banks but I do believe this test do not include maturity and interest rate mismatch (also called sensitivity) analysis, unlike the MAS.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen initially said of SVB there will no bailouts but flipped to provide 100% cover for all depositors by FDIC. The FDIC as at Dec 2022 has a fund balance of US$128b. How is it going to cover depositors 100%? Is the government biased by the fact SVB and Signature Bank are pretty much woke and supports the Democrats with much donations. All but one member of SVB board are Democrats. It was recently disclosed SVB donated S$73m to militant leftist Black Lives Matter organisation.

In a bank liquidation, depositors are considered as unsecured creditors and will receive from distribution of assets ranking parri passu with all other unsecured creditors. In the case of Singapore, depositors are insured up to S$75,000. In US the FDIC insures up to $250,000 per depositor.


Conclusion :

Rising interest rates to fight inflation causes liquidity stress in most markets that manifests in cash outflows in commercial banks. As banks maintain substantial holdings in securities for liquidity purposes, a rising interest rate causes losses in these securities if they are long-dated. If banks manage their interest rate gaps well, the losses on securities need not necessarily translate to bottom line losses. 

The market has been pushed to the cliff by rising interest rates and a black swan, which many expert voices have predicted is coming, will easily tip it over. It seems SVB is that black swan. In such circumstances, herd instinct drives the market. The huge overhang of unrealised losses on securities fans the fear, but in a market pushing over the cliff, panicky investors ignore the fact that banks which managed their interest rate gaps well will incur no losses. I believe there are good picks for shrewd investors during the mayhem.   

In short, Americans are killing their banks by elevating a liquidity problem into a solvency problem.

Note: Charts above are from FDIC. Data are all those commercial banks insured by FDIC which are the majority. The data  does not cover all banks in US.

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SOVEREIGNTY OF SINGAPORE PART 2 - SECURE FRONT GATE, OPEN BACKDOOR

把老虎挡在前门，狼却从后门进来。

(While keeping a tiger from the front door, the wolf comes in at the back)

In Part 1 I wrote about the dangers of pacifism. Implied is my acceptance of budget spendings on top notch military hardware such as F-35's and submarines. An army constrained by manpower must of necessity build its capacity on the best array of military hardware that it can afford. I leave it to the small group of Singaporeans tasked with the macro and micro managing of the nation's security to employ our scarce resources optimally. In a few short years the government has achieved more that what it initially set out to do. A citizen's army is in place and the country has land, sea and air defence capabilities with enhanced tenacity from superb military hardware. All these done with constraints no other military in the world has to grapple with - the lack of space for training in all 3 spheres of land, sea and air. It requires the galvanising of diplomacy to obtain training facilities in far away friendly nations and massive logistical support capabilities. It is not an easy task. The creme de la creme is Singapore acquired technical capabilities to manufacture our own munitions, overhaul or modify weapons, even to build naval vessels.

A side track. I remember Singapore's first attempt to build a naval vessel so many years ago. A friend of mine went out with that first vessel on several sea trials. He described the instability when it picked up speed and listed slightly. By now, Singapore has advanced far right of the learning curve. 

Overall, Singapore has done well. The country's front gate is adequately secure.

Do not misinterpret my opener as out-of-character condescension to authority. Nothing is perfect. There will be leakages, human errors, policy misalignments etc. I take pride in doing my share of sacrifice of 3 years fulltime combat role in the army and 2 rounds of reservist training. Now I consider it a civic responsibility to remain engaged and speak out without fear or favour on perceived shortcomings, not to inveigh on the authorities but offer feedback from the ground and initiate useful discussions.

While the front gate is well secured, the backdoor is open to infiltration that threatens our sovereignty. Have we let in any wolves by the back door? Perchance we may have. Backdoor infiltration are of the covert type that is difficult to detect, full of deceit to ulterior motives, involves players with skin in the game planning chess moves over decades. Let me narrate the possibilities.

Klaus Schwab wants to be the emperor of the new world order. The NWO agenda is no longer a conspiracy theory. It is out in the open now although opinions differ as to who are the people behind it. My personal thinking is it is some old families with long traditions operating out of the City of London. Klaus Schwab is the public figure. Using his World Economic Forum platform, Schwab has galvanised filthy rich elites from big pharma, big tech, media, celebrities, transnational institutions and public officials to their plans for a new world of utopia for elites and dystopia for the masses.

Whether you are a believer or not, for our purpose here, let's just assume it is true. We should then ask the question. Are there any amongst us who insidiously work in furtherance of Schwab's agenda, whether with full knowledge of their ulterior objectives, or unknowingly carrying out instructions because WEF public initiatives seem enticing, what with saving the world from climate change, smart cities, smart people, etc. It is a fact the government supports many initiatives of WEF. I think our government sees consonance in our need for international open trade with the globalist agenda of WEF. The government of Singapore faithfully follows every WEF meeting, sending big contingents to Davos now and then, was very disappointed for the cancellation of the WEF meet in Singapore due to Covid.

The government was right to ban people like Zakir Naik, Ron Fuyushima and the 4 Roman Catholic priests (see my blog). I think Yuval Noah Harari should be added to the list. Harari, to whom technology is the new religion, is emblematic of WEF. On the surface, a provocative historian with interesting projections of the human species, but in reality, a Schwab inner circle propagating and normalising a 'brave New World' of biologically and cyborg-engineered part-inorganic homo sapiens in a dystopian future plugged into some central control AI gadgetry that makes them enjoy everlasting pleasure in a distorted reality. Schwab's infamous quote " You will own nothing but be happy".

Schwab has boasted publicly in an interview of WEF having infiltrated many governments, and in the recent Jakarta summit he basically said he wants to be the emperor of the NWO. Kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, titans of industries, are on board his ship. Do you really think Singapore is immune? Has Singapore been infiltrated?

The World Health Organisation  used to be a respected transnational body. No more. It has been captured by philanthropy capitalism.  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, presides under a disquiet of the heavy influence of Bill Gates, an un-elected non-medical billionaire who can speak over the heads of the medical profession on matters of vaccine, treatment and handling of pandemic outbreaks. 

In the Covid pandemic, WHO seemed to bow to the dictates of the same narrative coming from EU and US. Singapore followed suit with quite similar practices and non-transparency in data dissemination. There was a lack of independent thinking, whether due to a beholden condescension to the West, or duty bound by some regulation. 

WHO, espousing same sentiments as Bill gates, want a single global approach to handling the next pandemic and sought to get this wrapped up in a new pandemic treaty. A treaty is a country contract. By international law, if WHO and Bill Gates have their way, all signatory countries will surrender sovereignty to them in the next pandemic. Several countries are enthusiastic about this, including Singapore which took part in the last WHO meeting to wrap up the draft treaty. Why does Singapore always want to be at the front of the class in all these international initiatives, but never seek townhall meeting with constituents to explain and seek input.   

Climate change is one of those front page issues the WEF wants to lead. A lot of the sciences aren't really settled, and a lot of new data from satellite observations contradict some narratives pushed down on us. Whilst I'm all for doing what we can, either individually or as a country, help not damage the environment, why should we believe a bunch of elites who come to meetings in their fossil fuel burning private jets, dictate what we should do? I'm all for getting rid of fossil fuel, but let's first work on the substitutes. Once again, Singapore wants to be the goody goody kid sitting at the front row in class who shoot his hand up to volunteer all the time. We want to be first in class. And whilst we work feverishly to achieve carbon zero and kill Singaporeans with punitive carbon tax, our carbon footprint is so tiny that it has basically zero impact in the world. Meanwhile, the 2 countries with the highest carbon footprint are coal pushers, the carbon levels in the atmosphere hasn't changed much, and coral beds all over the world are reviving.

It's a good thing that, unlike pandemic treaty, Paris Accord is voluntary. Yet we are eager beavers to extract citizen economic sacrifice as if in abeyance to an unseen sovereign.

Philiantrophy activism  in my opinion, is one of the most dangerous form of modern day infiltration to incubate sleeper cells of individuals who may not even realise they are being turned or manipulated for certain ends.  The vast wealth accumulated by some elites have turned them into powerful beings who realise they can enjoy tax benefits from philanthropy and at the same time, get to play sovereign on issues or politics of their choice. The most infamous of these players is of course George Soros. There are many others, such as Pierre Omidyar, Bill Gates. Soros has his Open Society and probably a hundred other NGOs camouflaged in names with the word 'Democrat' as pre-fix. Soros is a monster for chaos, from which he can extract unimaginable profit. A Jew who partnered Hitler in the slaughter of fellow Jews, because in his own words, if he doesn't do it, others will, might as well he benefits. Open Society was very much engaged in the demonstration that resulted in a regime change that brought  US-backed Petro Poroshenko to power in Ukraine. In Singapore, Open Society backed the proposed media New Narratif which the vigilant ACRA refused to approve. Not too long ago, AWARE president made some comments that seemed like canned woke talking points of the liberal left in the US. Was it it just accidental or is there something going on. We hope our public agencies are vigilant to many of these activist billionaires.  

Fauci and the vaccine cabal. It is a known fact Fauci and big pharma have been caught buying over medical professionals to control the vaccine narrative. By now, Western government narrative of vaccine is falling apart with whistle blowers, new data, excess death information, documents and revelation coming out of several important court cases. Yet Singapore is still sticking to the same old narrative. Is there a reason for this? Does Singapore have any covert role in this Fauci shenanigan. I suggested a relook at NUS-Duke University participation in my 25 Sep 2021 blog. The latest todate is Senator Kennedy revealing that Fauci is the one that executes the bioweapon programme of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Was NUS-Duke an unwitting participant?

Nugan Hand Bank which I blogged on 26 Nov 2022 is an obvious example of servile accomodation to US international intrigue. To deny otherwise is to believe in MAS malfeasance in approving a licence to an entity that had hardly any footprints in banking. Another incident which I heard a long time ago details of which I cannot publicise, involved the transportation of some captured Russian military hardware. Singapore provided the assistance of transportation to avoid detection. I have to say it was just hearsay. 

International Standards Organisation. I include this here to show how a wolf can easily get into the backdoor. ISO is an international body and Singapore is a member. Whatever ISO sets, we comply. Not too long ago, President Biden issued an Executive Order that demanded Amex and Mastercard include a special code for gun purchases. This was what media said. It will allow the Deep State to have tracking ability of gun sales which intrudes their Second Amendment rights. Both Amex and Mastercard complied but a week ago, for reasons unknown, they flipped. The truth of the matter is Biden issued no such orders to the credit card companies. It was ISO that Biden compelled to set a new code for the credit cards to follow. In other words, ISO an international organisation, took instructions from Biden. How can this be tolerated by members? Of course this code is irrelevant to Singapore but this incident illustrates how easy it is for the wolf to get in by the back door.

Monetary sovereignty. MAS is working on 2 CBDC (central bank digital currency) projects Ubin+ and Project Dunbar. These are for wholesale international settlements. The MAS has completed a study on retail CBDC and concluded it is not economically viable for the moment.

There is a real fear that western governments are preparing retail CBDC that will be a dystopian system of control. CBDC will lead to a social credit score. Every single individual's monetary transactions will be captured in a gigantic database and access to the system is a simple means for political control. Step out of line and your card will be denied access and you have no means of making any purchase. 

Is the current banking crisis an engineered one. Will they collapse all the regional banks and then roll out the CBDC? Personally I doubt so, for the simple reason CBDC is not ready any time soon. Nevertheless, people the world over ought to be vigilant over this development. If there is one weapon the dictators can exert absolute control over everyone, this is it.

Will MAS maintain its sovereignty or play second fiddle and eventually participate in a dystopian one world CBDC? That would be the biggest wolf of all.

Conclusion:

The government watches the front gate for the tigers. Singaporeans should watch the backdoor for the wolves. We can only do so with the courage to speak out, to question and to seek clarity.

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THE REAL REASON FOR THE RUN ON SILICON VALLEY BANK

A business may be profitable but it can still be wiped out by liquidity problems - that is, not having sufficient cash to meet immediate requirements. This is especially important for banks. If all customers were to turn up suddenly at commercial banks and demand to withdraw their deposits, all such banks in the world, including all the strongest ones, will collapse. This is because when customers place their deposits, the bank will keep a certain amount in their reserve account with the central bank (as required by regulation), invest some in low earning liquid assets, and the balance loaned out to borrowers or invested in non-liquid assets in order to earn enough to pay interest to their depositors and make some profit.

Banks keep a certain amount of currency notes for day-to-day needs of their customers. In a bank run, these currency notes run out very fast. The bank then uses their money in the reserve accounts to requisite more currency notes from the central bank. If this is not enough, the banks sell their liquid assets. Still not enough, the central bank allows the bank to draw on temporary credit facility in exercise of their lender of last resort function. This occurs only if the bank is viable and the the situation is seen only as a liquidity problem. Bank runs occur often due to rumours. When the situation is clarified and  trust returns, the bank run stops. Because the withdrawal is in physical cash, it takes a long time to clear the queues. In addition, even under normal conditions, there is also a limit on maximum cash withdrawal. Large retail and corporate accounts would need to withdraw by transfers or cashiers orders which require a couple of days for clearance. There is sufficient time for the bank and the authorities to clear the rumour and bring trust back.

In today's digital world, electronic banking and online apps enable depositors to move their funds out in seconds. Thus in a bank run, such services would immediately be shut down as it would lead to an immediate collapse of the bank. We saw this with crypto exchange platforms where withdrawal apps were shut down immediately in a run. As I understand, SVB operation is not very high tech, so they most probably have no online banking apps. This makes sense as they are not in the retail business.

SVB financial highlights (US$) :

Total assets -- $212b
Cash --  $14b
Securities -- $120b
Loans to customers -- $74b
Equity -- $16
Customers' deposits -- $173b
Borrowed -- $19b (short term - $14b)

On paper, SVB is solvent. It has enough assets to settle liabilities with equity still intact.

Of the securities, $91b are in their HTM (hold-to-maturity) portfolio. These are securities that will be held till maturity when they will be repaid at face value. Accounting treatment of HTM securities is to book at cost. There is no mark to market. A valuation would have shown the portfolio has an unrealised loss of $15b. This would have almost totally wiped out its equity, but SVB remains solvent on paper.

It's loans of $74b are to a few market segments, primarily tech sector, start-ups, and venture capitalists. 


SVB business model :

The bank started in 1983 to concentrate only on the tech sector. It rose very fast with the dot com boom to later suffer big losses in the dot com burst. It then rebuilt its business on the private equity ecosystem. The era of cheap money saw great wealth amassed by the few. More billionaires were born whose money has to go somewhere. Most end up in the stock and real estate markets causing asset valuations to soar. With too much liquidity chasing higher yields, money then poured into the higher risk private unlisted companies. Soon investor money found a new darling in the tech start-up sector. It's a good marriage of the filthy rich investors and the money gobblers of tech start-ups which use the 'cash and burn' business model. As the private equity capital market boomed, SVB rode on its back and expanded rapidly to become the 16th largest financial group in US. 

Start-ups have no revenue and normal banking credits are not available to them. SVB helps put up some seed capital collateralised on founders' shares. It connects founders to its network of private equity capitalists. These start-ups then work their way up the funding timelines till they IPO. This way, SVB became a key player in the start-up sector and customers it helped continued to bank with it after IPO. By 2022 about 56% of all tech start-ups in the US, both in incubation and those that IPO'd, bank with SVP. 

Commercial banks invest heavily in promotion to build up their deposit base. Customer deposits is a crucial source of funds. SVB has no need to attract depositors. When their start-up customers receive funding, they deposit their cash with SVB in non-interest bearing current accounts and some in time deposits. Each funding round is in the tens to hundreds of millions. Almost all these start-ups bank only with SVP which end up having cash like manna from the skies.

Flushed with depositor money, SVP has to make the money work. SVP's charter is a commercial bank but it does not operate as one. It is more a special purpose bank. The bank simply put a big chunk of their money (57%) into securities. It does some commercial lending in a selective market segment (35%). In short, SVP basically lived off fixed income from their securities portfolio. Which is pretty much a low risk operation.

In the 2 years 2020 and 2021, SVP deposit money increased by an astounding $127b. The reason is simple. The pandemic drove start-ups to require more cash so more funding rounds took place. Interest rates have already been very low, but with the pandemic, rates were further lowered to spur the economy. With Treasury bills at almost zero rates, SVP was forced to invest in longer term securities to seek higher yield. With a normal yield curve, the longer term bonds have a higher interest rate. SVP securities portfolio has an average term of 10 years at average rate of 1.56% pa.


Risk management failure :

For 8 months SVB had no Chief Risk Officer after  Laura Izurieta left April 2022, at the inopportune time when the yield curve reversed. The new CRO Kim Olson only came on board January 2023.

Going into 2022, SVB had 3 challenges on hand:

(1) A liquidity problem due to high cash out by start up depositors experiencing private equity capital pull back. It must quickly arrange for liquid assets to meet increased withdrawals. What did they do? The bank arranged $15b short term loan. This can be seen in their liabilities of $19b borrowing which included $14b balance of the short term loan. The funds borrowed is reflected in the Cash balance of $14b. With no bank run, they bought themselves enough time and safety net.
 
(2) An interest rate problem that's hurting the bottom line. SVB had non-interest bearing customer deposits of $81b which is cost free. The balance $92b is interest bearing. Due to an upward movement in interest rates, the bank experienced higher cost of funds. If we use a 3-month term deposit as example, the interest rate is about 3.88% pa. Since their fixed income on securities average 1.56%, that means with every $1 earned on the investment of the $92b deposit, SVB is paying out more than $2 in interest. They were staring at huge interest losses.

(3) A valuation problem of unrealised losses on their HTM securities portfolio of $91b. With portfolio average rate of 1.56% and short term Treasury Bills now at 4.7%, the portfolio carries an unrealised loss of about $15b. The bank has 2 options:
(a) Hold to maturity. Unrealised losses on HTM securities is not recognised in the profit & loss. By holding to maturity, the bank will eventually recover the full face value. But in the meantime, the assets are low return fixed income earners and the bank suffer interest losses; or
(b) Rebalance the portfolio. Sell the securities, recognise the losses immediately, but invest the proceeds in higher yielding shorter term securities. They suffer valuation losses in the year of sale, but fixed income interest earnings improve in future years.

In summary, SVP took on short term debt of $15b, sold long term securities of $21b which as expected, wrote off losses of $1.8b. It took further steps to shore up capital by arranging to issue $2.25b worth of new shares.

In reality, SVP did everything right by the book but nobody is talking about this. On Wednesday Mar 7, the bank was still solvent. So why the bank run and the collapse?


Wrong reasons for the bank run :

Leaving aside the bigger macro issues of the economy, there are 3 reasons you hear and read about which are all wrong. These are -

(1) Massive withdrawals by depositors caused the bank run. 
Wrong.This is putting the cart before the horse. The geeks from the tech start-ups do not have their focus on the banking scene. They had no difficulties drawing for their payroll or other bills prior to the run. There was no cause for concern up to Thursday morning Mar 8.

(2) SVB's huge exposure to start-up tech companies is a huge risk that worried investors.
Wrong.This turns on it's own head. The bank has a small loan exposure to the sector, but it is actually holding $174b of the money of start-up customers. The tech start-ups together has a $174b exposure to the bank. The credit risk is actually the other way round.

(3) The securities loss of $1.8b and new share capital issue of $2.25b spooked the market.  
Wrong. The bank balance sheet is still relatively strong. With balance sheet size of $212b it can absorb the loss. The $1.8b loss would normally have seen a slight price correction, not a 60% drop in one single day.


How the bank run occurred :

It's the investors who watch market development, not the geeks in the start-up companies. Primarily, it  was Peter Thiel, the Paypal founder. Thiel runs the venture capital Founders Fund. Shortly after SVB announced the $1.8b securities loss and capital issue of $2.25b, Thield advised all his portfolio companies to get out of SVB. Thiel was soon followed be a few other big VC funds who also asked their portfolio companies to dump SVP. The fund managers' advice amounted to fear mongering which triggered the big sell down. These are all big boys and their mass exodus caused the SVB price to tumble 60% last Thursday. Shares tumbled in like manner as the shorting of Adani's company. For all we know, don't be surprised Thiel shorted SVB big time.

By Thursday afternoon, depositors saw the developments in the equities market and rushed to get their money out. It was panicky investors who caused depositors to rush to the bank, not a bank run that caused the share prices to drop.

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SOVEREIGNTY OF SINGAPORE PART I - DANGER OF PACIFIST MINDSET

"In peace, prepare for war; in war, prepare for peace". Many use this quote and attribute it to Sun Tze (500-496 BC). They are all wrong. This is an invented quote. There is no such quote in The Art of War. Actually the more popular saying is "Si vis pacem, para bellum" (If you want peace, prepare for war.). This came from the Roman writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (365 - 450 AD). If the Chinese want pride of place, the same quote "If you want peace, prepare for war" came 500 years earlier from historian Sima Qian (145-86 BC). Before the Chinese can claim Roman plagiarism, 200 years earlier Plato (428-348 BC) taught in the agora "To enjoy peace, citizens must be ready for war". 

I have never taken peace for granted, and have been acutely aware and grateful my generation has seen no wars. It is easy to forget when the enemy is unseen. Singapore peaceniks often decry the high budget on defence, and go ballistic on news of our F-35s, or submarines. Indeed it is always the perennial myopic question of "why spend so much, who is our enemy?" The fact we live in a dangerous world is lost on them. Biden is courting war over Ukraine or Taiwan, both as chess steps in Western globalists pushing for one world order, and or the need to create diversionary theatres as the progressive crazy US admin falls apart in the relentless Republican investigations into criminal acts of the politicised and weaponised Deep State and the pandemic fiasco. The world is very destabilised at the moment. To cite something of more recent history and closer to home. We saw how Ferdinand Marcos almost created a Filipino-Malaysia war in the North Borneo dispute which ended with the Jabidah massacre in 1967. Who is to say someday in the future we may see a phoenix of the Pedra Branca dispute of a more menacing nature. And our own LKY decades ago famously suggesting war if our lifeline water pipeline across the Causeway is cut. 

Pacifism is a slow journey to a weakened state. This is illustrated by none other than China itself. It is debatable, but scholars have pointed to the rise of neo-Confucianism sometime during the Tang Dynasty that took the Middle Kingdom over the next thousand years, to military degradation right up to the time of the Century of Humiliation in mid 19th century and the infamy of the Boxer Rebellion.

Confucianism focused on the ethics and morals of individuals and how they build their own path to their place in heaven. The six books of Confucius had nothing on the military, and the sage himself had no training in the art of warfare. It was about self-cultivation and having sage leaders and kings. The dogma emphasised the obligation of the ruler to the people he ruled over.

Neo-Confucianism was a reactionary response to what was seen as a genteel culture and a wimpish society.  The neo-Confucianists pursued a more robust culture, one of more vigor. It will be an ideology that directs benefits to the state instead of the individual. Thus the rise of statism, a system of politics where all social and economic affairs are controlled by the centre. At the heart of neo-Confucianism is the imperial examination system that gave rise to a class of scholar officials. Individual pursuit of self-cultivation of classical Confucianists was replaced by obeisance to the neo-Confucianist scholar class, and to officials and the Emperor at the top of the food chain. This new power class dictates every little trivial matter of social relation and conduct down to day-to-day matters such as weddings, funerals, celebration of festive occasions, etc. In effect, neo-Confucianists turned the teachings of the great sage into a state ideology, owned by them. (Does this sound like Singapore?).😊

Chinese imperial court has often been a hotbed of intrigues between the "boon" and "boo", Hokkien dialect for the scholar officials and the military officials. Neo-Confucianist scholars won. Whilst defence still mattered, a docile population eliminated domestic threats. With that, neo-Confucianism led to a down-grading of the importance of all things military in the administration. This denigration of the "boo" led to a lowering of the martial spirit and military professionalism. Neo-Confucianism held over the next thousand years and saw Chinese military technology quagmired in antiquity. It is ironic that neo-Confucianism started at the time when China invented the gun powder, the nuclear power of those days. From there it degenerated in military technology terms to the inutile Ching Dynasty and the foreign occupation of China in the 19th century when the Chinese stared into the barrels of Western guns.. 

Pacifists believe the other side will simply reciprocate their restrains and neglect that history has shown the world is never missing out on belligerent leaders. These pacifists have a poor understanding of the deep causes of war. The causal factors of war are varied, and in most cases there are more than one cause. Reasons range from economics, insecurity, revenge, adventurism (Alexander the Great), imperialism, punishment, because of a woman (Helen of Troy) etc. All these are excuses, not the real deep cause. American writer Stephen Van Evera presented the best single cause as  ".... misperceptions that stem from shifting power relationships ....<and>..... from leaders miscalculating their prospects for victory". 

In events leading up to WWI, the British cabinet was strongly influenced by prominent pacifists like Lord Morley and Lord Haldane. Propaganda for pacifism was very strong, promoted by people like Haldane and Norman Angell, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, lecturer and journalist. These were well-intentioned and peace-loving people, but mis-guided.  Angell is famous for the line "... the economic cost of war is so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war ... ". The strong pacifism prevented the Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey from any influence over Germany at diplomacy. In was only a few days when war was imminent that Britain declared it will join the allies. Both France and Russia were later to say that had Britain announced early its decision to enter the war, it could have prevent Germany from starting WWI.

Fast forward to 1939, and once again, the appeasement approach of  Britain's premier Neville Chamberlain failed to prevent Germany from going to war. Hitler saw in Chamberlain nothing but weakness.

Some pacifists believe strongly that international disputes can be settled by peaceful means in the courts, or some international peace-keeping force. They place their faith in arbitration and that all is needed is the 2 parties to sign some papers. This group are idealists who think populists like Greta Thunberg are better placed to resolve international foreign conflicts than pragmatic statesmen. To these pacifists war is avoidable, and they actively demand disarmament of nations. It is naive for pacifists to harbour the view that a state of military unpreparedness can best protect the state from unforseen aggressors.

There are pacifists that want international disputes settled peacefully rather than war, and who doesn't. But these understand that means of peaceful settlement are not available. It therefore requires statesmanship in diplomacy and negotiation, which often is also impossible. These are the rational pacifists. There are hardly any such institutions to settle disputes, and if there is, it has no teeth. In the South China Sea arbitration, Philippines brought the case against China to UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). Philippines won, but China remains in the Philippines seas.

Weak nations join alliances such as the Non-Aligned Nations Movement popular after WWII when many nations gained independence from colonial powers. Others form regional groupings such as Nato. Few have treaties with a bigger partner such as Philippines which has a Mutual Defence Treaty with the US.  All for the purpose of projecting strength.

Even in their pacifist mindset, neo-Confucianists were aware external threats do exist and a reasonable military capacity is required. While the military existed, it had a low standing in the social hierarchy, lower than the farmers. That's where the Chinese saying "no good sons join the army" came from. Today we argue in the comfort of the armchair in our living room, how much of the budget should Singapore spend on defence. The answer is, as much as we can. If that is not an acceptable answer, then how much do you value your freedom?

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LEE KUAN YEW'S LAST WILL, FEUDING FAMILY, AND THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Oh dear, the 38 Oxley Road saga that shamed our nation is back in the headlines again. Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean from the Prime Minister's Office, revealed on Mar 2 that Lee Hsien Yang (LHY) and his wife, prominent lawyer Lee Suet Fern (LSF), have left the country to avoid a police interview. Singaporeans were told the police wants to interview LHY and LSF in connection with the judicial proceedings in the Disciplinary Tribunal and the Court of Three Judges. The investigation by police relates to claims of perjury by the couple. Both the timing of this police action, and the legalities, are very disconcerting. So the couple had to flee from the safest country in the world.

A presidential election is coming up. The way a president is elected in Singapore is anything but democratic. Firstly, candidates are vetted and approved by a special commission, and the way Singapore Inc works, there is a public perception approving members are beholden to the ruling party. Secondly, to qualify, a candidate must have been a CEO or chairperson of a company with paid-up capital of not less than S$500m. That stringent criteria all but block out 99.9% of the population and ensures the president will always be a stooge of the ruling party, whichever that may be.

With PM Lee Hsien Loong (LHL) due to retire, the grapevine says his wife Ho Ching, ex-CEO of Temasek, is a foregone conclusion to be a shoo-in. Ho Ching certainly has admirers, but there are equally many who dislike her, and many more who hate to see a Lee dynasty continuum even though the President is merely a ceremonial role. It had been whispered before that LHY had been persuaded to make a run for office should Ho Ching's candidacy be confirmed. The PAP is in panic mode as a LHY run will very likely derail their plan to place Ho Ching on the throne. Their only way out is to relitigate the past and charge LHY for lying at the Court of 3 Judges, thus disqualifying him.

What I heard was LHY has no interest in the job. But he was persuaded by some groups to take on the challenge should Ho Ching run. That to me, I see some moral fibres in the man. It was a decision not for self, but interest of the common man.

Perjury is a serious crime liable to jail time. Senior minister Teo and many PAP supporters mocked LHY for running away instead of simply attending the police interview to sort matters out. Simple for many to say who have never been on the receiving end of a political machinery whose vindictiveness are well known, especially for those with long memories. More so for LHY, who has for decades been on the inside of that machinery, to understand how it functions. It's just like in national service, when the brass is out to get you, there is no escape route. You fall in line with the best polished boots, well-pressed uniforms, clean-shaven, all ready for inspection, and the brass will zoom in on one single button that showed a tiny frayed thread protruding out. It's guard duties for you this weekend.

Bare bone synopsis of the Will :

- LKY wants his house demolished after his death.
- LKY was under the impression the house has been, or will be gazetted as heritage site.
- Will #1 had a conditional demolition clause. House to be demolished, but if gazetted, house should not be open to public.
- LHY and sister Lee Wei Ling want to honour their father's wish, LHL wants to retain it.
- LHL said Cabinet and public wants the house retained as a heritage site.
- The Will underwent several revisions. The demolition clause was dropped in Will #5 and #6. This was due to LKY having learnt from LHL the house has been gazetted as a heritage site.
- In time, LKY learnt there was no gazette. But he was aware LHL being prime minister, can gazette anytime.
- LKY asked for final revision of his will. Due to travels, LKYs lawyer Kwa Kim Li could not draft the new will. 
- LSF was asked to handle the revision.
- Will #7 basically reverted to will #1, ie the demolition clause re-inserted.
- Probate was approved in 2017.
- The flame of controversy was lighted. It swirled around the claims of professional misconduct by LSF in her handling of will #7.
- The Attorney General (who had been LHL's personal lawyer), brought the case to the Law Society.
- The case went before the Disciplinary Tribunal which preferred 2 charges against LSF for misconduct.
- The case went before the Court of Three Judges where LSF was found guilty on one lesser count of misconduct and suspended for 15 months.

My 2 comments on this :

(1) On the conditional demolition clause, some Facebook comments deride LKY for his contempt of the public. It seems the suggestion came from LWL and LHY. Since LWL had a live interest to reside in the house, a show piece house means a total surrender of her privacy. Both LKY and his wife dreaded the thought of turning the house into a museum. The conditional demolition made a lot of sense. But in my opinion, I think the wily old fox could have seized the very idea as a politically correct response to LHL's intention. Let me express it in crude Hokkien to the tik tok generation : "knn, the dishonourable son wants to gazette to conserve. Limpeh insert this condition of no public visitors".  Of what good is a national heritage house if the public has no access. Chess moves. That's what it's all about.

(2) On LSF handling Will #7 - the task was rushed and done in a harried way. LKY lawyer Kwa Kim Li was out of town, LSF was on the way to Paris, LHY was flying to Australia. Some things were handled by LSF staffers. LSF made one critical error. She sent the draft copy of Will #1 instead of the signed copy to her staff. Thus Will #7 had the conditional demolition clause re-inserted, which was apparently what LKY wanted. Witnesses attested to the fact LKY read through and signed every single page of Will #7. Draft Will #1 had a minor point that was not in the draft but in the signed copy. This related to the inconsequential gift of 2 pieces of carpets to LHY. (LKY was a very thrifty man. He felt the carpet would be wasted on LWL or LHL both of whom would not take care of it). After Will #7 was signed, LKY made a codicil to include the carpet gift. Ironically, this mistake of LSF strengthens the argument that LKY knew exactly what he was signing.The fact he noted the trivial carpet clause was left out puts all discussion to the lucidity of LKY and validity of his final will to rest.


The Parliamentary debate :

When the family feud came into the open in 2017, the public discourse did huge political damage to the prime minister. LHL soon earned the nickname of "dishonourable son".  There was a parliamentary session to debate on whether there was misconduct on the part of LHL. They maintain that LHL as head of government, the record had to be set straight and his integrity ascertained. Was anyone really surprised the outcome of the debate was a "Hell No". There was no misconduct. 

Politically, the parliamentary debate did more harm than good. The public felt the prime minister had utilised state resources for private and personal purposes. A mis-use of power.

Old timers may well recall Minister for National Development Teh Chiang Wen committed suicide in 1986 by poison the day following a visit by LKY. Teh was under investigation for corruption. Rumours swirled. Was he encouraged to go the "Oriental gentleman" way? Who provided him the poison? But there was no debate in parliament to set the record straight then.


Sudhir Vedaketh's e-book :

Sudhir wrote an e-book on  The Battle Over Lee Kuan Yew's Last Will which I recommend everyone to read. Just click the link. It's well researched, quite comprehensive, with lots of email extracts, footnotes. Sudhir presented the facts, with his rational comments. He remained non-partisan as best he could. It's too bad he was unable to conduct any interviews as no character in the play would acquiesce to it and save for LHY, questions raised went unresponded by the few that Sudhir sent his requests to. 

My 2 comments on this :

(1) I think Sudhir missed out on mentioning that in Jan 2016, the two brothers had decided to each contribute half their share of the value of 38 Oxley Road to charity. Based on market value of S$24m at the time and their 1/3 share, that would mean a donation of S$4m each. See Straits Times 19 Jan 2016.

What is the significance of the pledge of donation? To LHL who has been upfront saying that he does not want to be seen as profiting from any financial transaction out of the house, the publicity of the donation served his purpose. To LHY, I think he felt he gained the prime minister's commitment to demolition and disposing the property. However, LHL left the option open by cunningly saying in public he wanted to honour his papa's wish, but it is left to the government of the day if they so decide to put it up for conservation.

The prime minister sat on the high horse and passed the buck to a cabinet that he controls with an incredibly big purse. But don't we know that for 5 decades, all important decisions in Singapore are made by one man.  We remember too the 4 hour-wait for the decision to use helicopters to rescue people trapped in the Sentosa cable car incident in 1983. As the cable cars swayed in the strong wind, Singaporeans prayed in agonised suspense waiting for the rescue that everyone who has watched television knew would be by use of helicopters. It was a certain general's call. The helicopters came 4 hours later.

(2) Sudhir mentioned that he was prompted to write the e-book partly due to suggestions from some PAP members. He has sworn to reveal names only over his dead body. It is apparent that there indeed are PAP members who have taken the red pill. This revelation points to a deep schism within the ruling party. It would be interesting to see developments post-LHL at the helm.


Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean's comments on Sudhir's e-book :

In reply to a parliamentary question last week, Minister Mr Teo said : “The book is not credible, as it totally ignores the facts and findings which had been established, after an objective and thorough examination of the case. It is clear that the assertions in his book are calculated to mislead, as they are completely at odds with the findings and conclusions of the Court of Three Judges and the disciplinary tribunal.” 

Assertions - These are opinions. The minister is saying none of us can have opinions not aligned to their narrative. Sudhir in fact made few non-partisan opinions. He laid the facts and explained what they meant.

At odds with judicial findings - These are facts. It is unfortunate the minister made a claim but never follow up listing which are the facts that Sudhir had twisted. Teo fired a loose canon.

I suggest you read Sudhir's e-book pages 63-67. Sudhir put together all the facts relating to the Ministerial Committee of 2016 to look into what to do with 38 Oxley Road.  What Sudhir pointed out are most certainly inconvenient for Minister Teo who chaired that committee.


The disciplinary case against LSF:

Many on social media and probably in coffee shops, discussed and argued on the case for years. It is good to have debates and arguments if it serve to educate. Unfortunately, from my observation, almost 100% of comments got into the obfuscation of whether LKY was lucid and LHY/LSF monkey-tricked a brilliant old man into signing a revised will. I wrote a blog on this in 2020.

Read : "A different take on the Disciplinary Tribunal case against daughter-in-law of Lee Kuan Yew" ... Chempost blog 3 Mar 2020

The case had nothing to do with the state of mind of LKY nor the validity of Will #7. Probate was granted in 2015 and LHL did not contest. By estoppel, he can no longer contest the will, unless there is new evidence of fraud. The will is valid, period.

The case against LSF in the Court of 3 Judges boils down to 2 charges :

(1) Gross improper conduct {as LKY lawyer}
(2) Misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor

The Disciplinary Tribunal had found LSF guilty on both counts. Court of 3 Judges found her not guilty of (1) but guilty of (2).

(1) is the question before the courts of whether LSF was acting as a lawyer of LKY and if not, whether as 'implied lawyer'. The court found there was no lawyer-client relationship, whether actual or implied. The court agreed LSF was merely acting on instructions of her husband to help out to prepare the will. LKY knew LSF took instructions from LHY. Not reaching this conclusion is to insult the brilliant mind of LKY that they were treading on a legal minefield to use LSF as lawyer.

(2) the misconduct concluded by the court that LSF blindly followed the directions of her husband by rushing through the execution of the will, sent draft instead of signed Will #1, never check with LKY if indeed he wanted to revert to Will #1, did not keep LKY's lawyer Kwa Kim Li in the loop completely, and that she was not  “alive to the real danger” that it was her husband, a major beneficiary of the last will, not LKY, who was in a hurry to have it executed. 

The preparation of Will #7 was done during a time when LKY lawyer Kwa was out of town, LSF was leaving for Paris, and LHY was going to Australia. It's no excuse for shoddy work, but understandable for slip ups. The judges did not belief that LKY wanted the task done fast. Obviously they have never worked directly under the old man before. LHY said he was doing what everybody does when asked by LKY - they jump on it. (Go research the story of LKY and Bernard Chen in London - it's instructive of the way LKY works).


What is the perjury all about :

When you engage with an opposition hater, uno numero is Critical Spectator and his echo chamber, they all yell in unison LHY and LSF are liars. They lied, lied, lied, as The Quest would have it.. Yet none has actually read the court documents, nor really understand what are the lies. 

A judge's opinion when he refuses to believe, does not necessarily make the evidence a lie. A mistake of law is unforgivable. A mistake of fact is pardonable so long as it is made honestly, reasonably believing it to be true and with no intent to deceive. For example, the defendants said there was difficulty reaching Kwa, but the judges deduced that not to be so. Was that fact or opinion?

There was something troubling with the way Kwa was kept out of the loop at some point, as the judges rightly pointed out. LHY and LSF need to come clean with this. But these do not tantamount to lies. I have no evidence, but my gut feel on this is it has something to do with trust issues. Subsequent charge of misconduct against Kwa brought by the couple provides a hint. 

From media reports that I have gleaned, I could not determine what are the lies. Sudhir had access to the court papers and he pinned down to one single circumstance where the court said LHY "was not telling the truth.". This relates to the question of how the draft copy of Will #1 got to LKY. In the Disciplinary Tribunal, LHY had said he sent it to LSF, who used that as the basis for Will #7 which was then sent to LKY. But in the Court of 3 Judges, LHY or LSF said LSF had a copy of Will #1 which she sent to her staff to prepare Will #7 and then sent to LKY. On this point alone, the court said LHY lied. Sounds like that damn frayed thread from my national service days.

If this was a lie, to what purpose? Where is the gain? Sudhir had sought LHY's comment on why is there no email evidence to show he sent the document to his wife. The explanation was they both periodically delete unimportant messages in their email account. A convenient explanation or the truth, who knows. They have my benefit of the doubt for the simple reason there is no profit to this 'lie'. And if this is of paramount importance for their honour, I wonder if they have tried a forensic recovery.

The fact the draft instead of the signed copy of Will #1 was used was of particular concern to the judges. The point, and absolutely correct, there could have been potential severe harm had it not been “fortuitous” that the contents of the Will #7 signed were materially similar to Will #1 that Lee Kuan Yew wanted to revert to.

Having said that, our 3 dear judges were not privy to the contents of the wills and that it was not accidentally "fortuitous", but that the draft Will #1 was something the family had already agreed to. Per Sudhir, the draft was agreed and to be executed the following day. Unknown to LHY, in the final Will #1, LKY inserted an additional clause of the carpet gift.

Taking all in, the perceived 'lie' is a tiny molehill compared to the lies of Khaw when he said in parliament that the PAP owns AIM, or Charles Chong's libellous claim of the $22.5m missing funds of the Workers' Party. These are inconvenient issues that opposition haters do not discuss. Sure, these were not lies in court, but these are mountains on the morality scale.

What is the Prime Minister's motive not to demolish :

I finally found what I think the answer is. In 2012 LKY said in an e-mail that 

“...the cabinet has opposed tearing it down and rebuilding, because 2 PMs have lived in the house, me and Loong". 

It is a huge ego trip. The man wants his place in history.


Conclusion :

My personal feelings about the judicial proceedings is the Court of Three Judges got it absolutely right. My opinion does not come from some pseudo legal finery, just what a reasonable man with his feet firmly on the ground feels. LSF fell short in professional prudence, but there was no deceit. The circumstances surrounding the hurried manner the task was executed and the non-physical presence of key persons are no excuse but contributing factors to the confusion. In closing, I quote from my 3 Mar 2020 blog :

"One can only wonder how 3 luminous minds of the Lee family, LKY himself, son Yang and Fern, could have overlooked the illegality of having a testator's daughter-in-law to draft the Will."

Where do I stand on 38 Oxley Road? Personally I would have like it to be a heritage site. However, my personal preference is subjugated by a moral obligation to respect the wishes of a dead person.  

Let me try to go pseudo-philosophical and quote Alexander Pope (Of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to Society -  Epistle III) :

So drives Self-love thro’ just and thro’ unjust,
To one man’s power, ambition, lucre, lust:
The same Self-love in all becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, government and laws.
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What serves one will, when many wills rebel?
How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake,
A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?
His safety must his liberty restrain:
All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Forc’d into virtue thus by self-defence,
Ev’n kings learn’d justice and benevolence:
Self-love forsook the path it first pursued,
And found the private in the public good.

The message is even kings who are learned in justice and benevolence must act morally because natural laws govern all individuals and society. One needs to restrain self-interest. Seek it within the wider interest of society.

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