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Friday, August 11, 2023

I SLEEP, THEREFORE I DREAM



“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” (Carl Jung)

The Holy Grail of my journey as a blogger is pursuit of the size of our national reserves, which is as mystical as the misty lake in which lay the Excalibur, the stuff of Arthurian tales forever etched in the recesses of memories of schoolboys of my generation. I am taking a breather from some research work to pen this blog on an inconsequential dream, actually banging away on a laptop with a faulty keypad. I spilt some water on it and a few of the buttons aren’t functioning anymore. Necessity is the mother of invention and so I resort to a methodology of copy and paste the dead characters. A poor workman has to learn to live with his tools. Darn it, I now realise my dead button “T” is the most used letter in English alphabet.

In younger days on my first visit to London, I purchased a collection of hardcover books, classics that I had intended to read in my golden years. Well, I do admit in part I thought they will look impressive on display bookshelves behind my desk in the study room. There were Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Water Margin (Chinese classics in English translations as I cannot read original scripts), Readings of Edgar Cayce, and others. Much to my regret, I lost the copy of Cayce’s book on ‘Dreams’ before I had a chance to read it. It would be great to see if this celebrated clairvoyant can make sense of what dreams are all about.

Personally, I think dreams come about when our brain does spring cleaning work when we sleep. Our brain has the memory the capacity of a mainframe computer, if not bigger. It is astoundingly huge. To maintain efficiency, it performs the equivalent functions of repartitioning, defragmentation, registry optimisation, etc whilst we sleep. As these bits and bytes of our memories are moved around, we get juxtapositions of broken pieces of visuals which we string into short stories of a dream. We inherit the chromosomes of our parents, which contain traces of their forebears or lineage. Similarly, I posit, we also inherit some memory cells of our lineage. This I think, explains why some people believe they are reincarnations of someone else, and which forms the library from which our dreams are drawn from.

I had a vivid dream of an old school chum whom I shall call Seng. This dream was downright mundane if not for the fact the protagonist was someone whom I have never heard from nor heard of for 5 decades since leaving school. I wonder why he should appear in my dream in such a vivid manner. I saw him as in our teenage years, his mannerism, his voice, the way he talked, his gait, his dressing, and his smile, just as if it was yesterday.

I thought I blog it for posterity, something to reminisce about and share with my scout brothers.

Seng was one of our scout leaders, well-liked and respected. As a senior scout, he was one of the good leaders for the troop. Polite, obliging, responsible and to use a word from today’s vocabulary, inclusive in nature. He was way smarter than I was academically, what with him in the ‘A’ class and me in ‘B’. I was not really close to him to get a sense of his inner feelings. But I had always thought of Seng as one of those likely to reach some level of prominence in life. Much later after school did I learn that English Language was his Waterloo. English was a compulsory subject and his weakness of it averaged his scores down badly in the GCE examination. I also learnt decades later that he had some disagreements with our scout master, the matter of which no one really was privy to. Whatever it was, it seemed so damaging that Seng severed all relationship with the entire scout troop. He simply vanished from our orbit to this day.

I wonder how Seng could possibly have an altercation with our scout master who we call Skip, short for skipper. Our beloved Skip was a gentle soul, a teacher with most empathy. He did not run a nanny scout troop. Instead he let the patrol leaders play leadership roles. He kept a watchful eye, helped to liaise with sponsors when needed, and kept out of the way, joining us occasionally to impart some moral wisdom here and there, or introduce some new games..Other school scouts often wonder how we managed to have military tents for camping events, complete with three tonners for transport, courtesy of the British Army. Skip was never interested in his charges acquiring all those scout badges to pin on the chest, like our generals. Whenever we attend campfires, our boys were the most under-decorated scouts present. All we had was just the minimum mandatory ‘tenderfoot’ badge. Instead Skip focused on leadership and basic fun survival skills, taught us to love and respect nature. We learnt how to keep the environment we occupied in much better condition when we leave, long before PAP started those anti-littering and keep the country clean campaigns. Unfortunately, Skip never had the blessings to enjoy his retirement. He was involved in a tragic fatal accident while holidaying in Australia shortly after his retirement.

In my dream a few days ago, Seng was sitting on a bench looking for something in his wallet. As I approached him, his mobile rang. Anachronism is something we do not question in dreams. My dream had the feel of late1960s, and Seng had a mobile. He passed his wallet to me to hang on to while he managed the mobile with one hand and rummaged his knapsack for something with the other, then he said "Let’s go", all seemed to be in one single motion. As I too had some stuff to carry and my jean pockets were all full, I placed his mobile in my shirt pocket.

Off we went to another place where the dreamscape looked like a park. There we were met by a group of our scout mates. As we engaged in animated chatter, a couple of policemen came up to us to conduct a random check. Except for Seng, all of us showed IDs and satisfied the lawmen. Both Seng and I had forgotten his wallet was with me. With no ID on him, Seng was led away to the police station. Several minutes after the trio departed, I realised the error of my ways. In haste to bring the wallet to Seng, I jostled myself out of dreamland.

In the darkness of the night I pondered over a meaningless encounter in a dream which is our personalised matrix. We pursue dreams in our waking hours with busy schedules, building networks, meeting datelines. In sleep, dreams pursue us for purposes we understand not.

Carl Jung said: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

For all his prowess at psychoanalysis, I think Jung plays with our mind. Seng, the policemen, whatever, the dream is only actionable for me if I was able to see the 4 digits of the patrol car registration plate that I can bring to the sweepstakes. Baring none, I am just grateful for a metaphysical and ephemeral experience to remember friends whose paths we never have the chance to cross.



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25 comments:

  1. The amount of our external financial reserves is not a secret. Lots of people in the financial world know because it’s their business to know.

    You can find out in two ways. Yoi can go to the websites of the IMF and the World Bank and extrapolate from the data therr. Or you can talk to someone senior in Moody’s or S & P.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One needs to firstly define what is their meaning of reserves. The term means different things to different people. For me I stick to what's defined in the Constitution. In a nutshell, it means the wealth accumulated by gov entities over the years and which belongs to the public. Eg all those investments out of CPF money funds, and MAS official foreign reserves, are not part of our national reserves.

    The data you mentioned is based on information publicly available info in the market relating to Temasek, MAS, and government reporting. GIC figures they basically pick up from the company's investment activities which means they have no complete information, same as everybody else in SG. Whole host of data which the financial world IMF and World Bank etcetera are missing out are data relating to 70 plus statutory boards. So my friend, what you're saying is not true. Wish it is as easy as that.

    I am from that financial world you talk about, so is Kenneth Jeyaratnam, so is Prof Balding, Chris Kuan, and many others. You can't know that which is never revealed.

    Those figures are their guestimates. Same Same, all guessing.

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  3. Talk to Moody’s and S & P. They have the real numbers. They have to, or they will not be able to do their ratings.

    By the way, Prof Balding is not very clever. He doesn’t know what is “total shareholder returns” or the difference between book profit and realised profit. I shot him down in TR Emeritus 10 years ago.

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  4. 6/7 years ago, not 10.

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  5. Have you been to the websites of the IMF and the World Bank? Do you know that every year the national budget submitted to Parliament is different from the one submitted to the IMF? You will be stunned at the actual surplus which is not disclosed to Parliament.

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  6. Just googled Prof Balding and found he was sacked from Fulbright University Vietnam in Sept 2020 for telling lies to NBC News.

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  7. He was previously sacked from Peking University in 2016.

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  8. Thank you, to all anonymouses for sharing.

    I have a coming blog on Reserves where I shall address your comment on IMF, World Bank, Moody's S&P etc.

    I know Balding years ago. I have mentioned him in my old blogs years ago. I have always held him with suspicion. Why an American working in communist China, hold a fixation on the economics of Singapore.

    The context I brought in his name here is that he too grappled with the question of the size of the reaserves. If it were so easy to pick up this info from the sources you mentioned, we would be insulting Balding's intelligence ( and Kenneth Jeyaratnam, Leong Munwai, myself and many others) that he didn't know how to go these sources.

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  9. Forget about Balding. You can’t anything later than 2020 about him in the internet. He could be driving a taxi in California now.

    Looks like your main sources of information are dubious bloggers with personal agendas.

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  10. .... you can’t find.,...

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  11. Dear anonymous

    Would be nice if there is a name.

    You are cute or what? I thought I said I find Balding suspicious. If you had read my older blogs you would have found I rebutted his figures on a few occasions. You would have also known I mentioned Kenneth Jeyaretnam flew to HK years ago and met up with Balding to compare figures but left dejected because KJ found the prof's computation rubbish.

    You form your opinion based on some stuff you googled. I form mine based on the figures he presented, the study he published and KJ's discussion with him.

    And here you are discrediting me for using Balding as my main source. Perhaps you can point out what is it that I quoted from Balding?

    Please do justice to my response to you earlier where I explained the context of why I brought Balding's name in. I put the point that if reserves figures are readily available as you indicated, Balding and the res don't need to guess.

    PM Lee just 2 days ago repeated again for the nth time reserves figure is a secret. Are you discrediting him?

    If it is so easy like you say, can you please show some figures here?

    My nex blog coming up I am going to show the figures I come u with. We can then see how good the figures are.

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  12. ....ton of data.....

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  13. As for Google, it is like Prometheus and fire. You can use it or abuse it.

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  14. Dear Anonymous

    You are here simply to annoy.
    Which blogger did I follow and what info or data did I employ from them?
    What exactly did I say that you disagree with?
    In the first place you are not even on the correct blog.
    Yes I know you are the only person in the world to read from financial sources.(Yes I know you don't have your own opinions, just go grab from websites)
    I asked you for the IMF figure for the size of our national reserves. Better still, what does FT, EIU, WSJ, Reiuters, Bloomberg etc. say the size of our reserves is? I am still waiting. It should be at your fingertips, no?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Just because the G does not reveal it does not mean we cannot it from other sources.

    To give you another example, the Ministry of Defence budget is one lump sum and we are not told the cost of the arms we buy. Yet I found the cost of ever F-15, every bomb and every missile from US DOD and Congressional data.

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  16. Remember, the data in the IMF website is submitted by the G is according to IMF standards, not according to PAP standards and is dufferent from that presented to Parlizmentt and published in the ST.

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  17. OK
    Mr Smart guy
    I admit I was wrong. I know nothing. You are so smart. Your knowledge of F35 is better than the rocket scientists.
    Now no need to go to the moon and and back.
    Just tell me what is the size of our national reserves? How about GIC - what is its total asset size.

    Before you answer about GIC you might want to see my blog

    https://chem-post.blogspot.com/2022/12/GIC-poised-to-be-3rd-largest-SWF-in-the-world.html

    If you do not provide reserves and GIC figures in your next comment, I'm out of this meaningless thread cos it adds nothing to knowledge.

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  18. At the very outset of this thread I told you about IMF data. If you had engaged me on that it could have led you somewhere.

    Instead you insisted on being stubborn and defensive and now you are showing your frustration.

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  19. I see
    I was born yesterday. I didn't know about IMF. I also no no what is World Bank.
    I think you know I worked ab 30 years in banking right?

    So I am still waiting for your IMF figure. What do they say about reserves and GIC figures? So I can go and show LHL that he also didn't know what he was talking about.


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  20. So now you are expert on IMF sandards.
    Am I right you say what was discussed in Parliament is different from what was submitted to IMF? You mean budget, right? So which is the correct one?
    And how does budget relate to reserves and GIC?

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  21. You are not as bright as I thought.

    All data submitted to IMF must be according to their standards, not according to PAP standards. Our budget presented to Parliament shows only recurrent income and recurrent expenses. The one submitted to IMF includes all income, including capital income such as land premiums, asset sales and all investment income. There is a big difference between the two. The PAP basically keeps two sets of accounts, one for Parliament and one for IMF.

    That is why I keep saying what you are looking for is in the IMF data if you know how to analyse it.

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  22. If you do a time series on the difference between the Parliament budget and the IMF you can find out just how much surpluses (which goes into the reserves) have been accumulated.

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  23. Still waiting for your IMF figure.
    Thanks for letting me know you garner info from sex sites.

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  24. If I tell you it will be another guesttimate by another keyboard warrior, unless I send you a thumbdrive with all the data I’ve collected over several years.

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  25. Spare me the data. No need to impress me. All I ask is one simple, yes simple, since you have said its all out there, simple figure. What is the size of the reserves. -

    ReplyDelete

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