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This is a beautiful Mexican naval training vessel and today the news was that it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. I saw the videos and was surprised how the vessel could be attempting to go under the bridge when clearly there was no height clearance. 2 crew members have died so far with a few others injured, some seriously.

I had the pleasure to be invited to go on board the vessel when it arrived in Singapore in August 2024. I remember waiting onshore and watching the beautiful vessel slowly coming in to dock at Vivocity. All the crew lined up on the vessel and it was such a beautiful sight. There was a lot of pomp and ceremony when it arrived. It docked in Singapore for 3 days and I met up with the very same captain and his crew on board. It was on a goodwill world wide tour and everyone was cheerful on board the vessel.

I do hope they quickly sort out why the crash occurred and my sympathies to the families of the deceased and the injured. Such a dreadful incident to happen to a vessel which was on its mission to spread goodwill.

Today I watched the final episode (?) of this franchise. Watched it in Kl at the brand new Aurum cinema at TRX. It’s a beautiful cinema with different options to watch a movie such as IMAX, split screens, suites with dining etc. I have never seen a movie in Malaysia before and I thought since I am watching, probably the final episode, I will watch it in style and opted for the suite with dining.

I have seen all the previous 7 movies in this franchise and, bar no 2, I have enjoyed all of them. In preparation I watched no 7, which is part 1, on Friday night on tv. Just as well I did cos I had forgotten almost everything about the previous movie which I had seen a year ago.

The pre movie dining was at the Hokkaido Table, a rather fancy place for a movie dine in. There is an option to eat inside the cinema but I thought I better eat first and then focus on the movie!

The cinema suite was very comfortable with a Getha sofa bed and blankets and a mini fridge with free refreshments. The Dolby Atmos sound system was good and I could hear the dialogue clearly.

I liked the movie. It is fast paced but I thought the action sequences could have been trimmed a bit. A fitting finale to the series with a generally happy ending!

Today I watched an MPO performance at their beautiful concert hall in KLCC. Tonight’s performance is entitled Bizet 150 A symphony of celebration, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the passing of French composer and pianist Bizet at the young age of just 36.

This concert hall and the MPO were both conceived at the time the PETRONAS twin towers was being built. The orchestra was set up in 1997 and had its first performance in 1998. The concert hall is purpose built for the orchestra with wonderful acoustics and wonderful ambience. I have always enjoyed concerts here and there was a time in the early 2000s when I would drive up to KL regularly on the weekends to catch their concerts. They used to bring in very well known conductors and soloists to perform with the MPO. To me, a memorable performance of Beethoven 9th, Mozart’s piano concerto for 2 pianos with Melvyn Tan and Joshua Bell on the violin stand out still.

I stopped coming here after a while. I think the last time I was here must be have been in 2007 or 2008. After that, I heard the quality of performances by the orchestra dropped.

The first half of tonight’s performance started off with 2 short pieces by Falla followed by L’Arlisienne Suite No 2 by Bizet. I didn’t care too much for the 2 Falla pieces but the Suite was alright.

The second half was the highlight and it featured excerpts from his most famous opera Carmen. There were 4 soloists performing with the orchestra. Bizet completed this opera just 3 months before he died and unfortunately for him, it was only declared a masterpiece after he died. Poor man. It became so successful after he passed away.

It was a good performance tonight and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Drove again yesterday morning to KL. This time I left at 530 in the morning but only managed to cross the Singapore Tuas immigration at 6am.

After a smooth drive, I decided to stop at Ayer Keroh to have a coffee at Starbucks and do a quick charge. I arrived there at about 820am. I have never charged my car using a fast charger and so this was a new experience of sorts. The battery charged from about 45% to 80% in 15 minutes. Although I could arrive in Kl with 15% still left on my battery, it was good to know that I learnt how to charge it on the road. Also the short break dis do wonders for the alertness level!

Thereafter another smooth drive to KL and I arrived at 1010 am.

It was interesting weekend. After just 2 days of talks, the US and China agreed to bring down their existing tariffs substantially for a period of 90 days. During this period, both parties have agreed to have talks to resolve their trade differences.

So the US tariffs have come down from 145% to 30% and the China tariffs have come down from 125% to 10%. For a 90 day period.

Clearly Trump has moved away from his initial position of the tariffs remaining in place whilst the trade negotiations take place.

He had no choice because the shelves in the supermarkets and department stores were running dry and even critical medical equipment like syringes and gloves were running low. The ports had loads of goods which could not be unloaded because of the tariffs and shipping activity at the mains ports in the US had reduced dramatically. At the same time, farmers who used to sell agricultural products to China were hit because their products could not be shipped there.

In China, factories were hard hit as new orders dried up. Workers were being laid off and salaries unpaid.

A decoupling of the world’s 2 largest economies just wasn’t possible in the very short time frame imposed by Trump.

A deal may eventually be struck but clearly the US is going to need to extract something from China to balance the trade deficit. Will China give in? At this point in time, the US needs China. But the writing is on the wall for US importers. Either move your manufacturing away from China or better still, bring it back to the US. And once they have diversified, the US can move on. But for China, who can they export their products to? The US is such a big market that moving away from the US to other markets may not be possible. Boosting domestic consumption is possible but the Chinese will never be able to absorb what they export to the rest of the world.

Longer term this will be a much bigger problem for China than the US.

Historically drug prices are the highest in the US. Even for the same products available in other countries, US has been paying more. Most of the pharmaceutical companies do not manufacture their drugs in the US and the US ends up importing them. India has a big trade deficit with the US because it exports a lots of pharmaceutical products and drugs, including generic drugs to the US. Singapore, I just learnt, falls into that category as well.

There are several reasons for this. One the US can afford it. There were and are many rich people there who can afford the high medical fees and drugs. Their insurance companies and Medicare are prepared to pay high prices to the pharmaceutical companies for the drugs. This is eventually funded by higher premiums paid by US citizens and the US government which funds Medicare. This premium charged to the US has allowed the pharmaceutical companies to fund their research and innovation in this field.

Trump has now come up with 2 ideas to bring down the drug prices in the US.

One is for the high tariffs on imported medical products and drugs into the US. Whilst the immediate impact would be to drive up the prices of drugs in the US, including the prices of generic drugs, Trump says this would eventually force the pharmaceutical companies to start manufacturing these drugs in the US. Whilst it may be difficult to sort out the established supply chains currently in place and it may not make sense for the manufacturing of the cheaper generic drugs, it may make sense for the pharmaceutical companies to move manufacturing for the higher end drugs and products to the US.

I can understand the frustration. The biggest consumer market is paying the highest prices for the products in the world and does not have any high end manufacturing capabilities in their own country.

The second idea which was announced this morning was that Trump would sign a directive today directing that the US will only pay the lowest price the drug companies charge for the same drugs to the other countries.

This will have a huge impact . Currently the cheapest prices charged are for the drugs sold in the poorer parts of Africa and Asia. And if the US is only prepared to pay the same price as what these countries are charged, several scenarios are possible.

One, the pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell to the US at these prices and the supply of drugs in the US dries up creating a outcry there. Possible but can that go on for long? The US is also the biggest buyer and how long can the stand off last? The pharmaceutical companies will also lose out on their biggest market.

The other is that to appease Trump, they bring manufacturing back to the US and negotiate to bring down the current high prices to a more manageable level. I think this is what will eventually happen. There will be lower drug prices in the US and more manufacturing will take place there.

But to offset the lower margins from the US market, the pharmaceutical companies will end up increasing the prices of drugs everywhere else. We may bear the brunt of this as we are seen as able to pay. It’s like how we end up paying so much more to watch the World Cup than our neighbors simply because we are small and seen as able to pay whatever is charged.

The other is that countries which currently do manufacturing of pharmaceutical products and drugs may see the manufacturing from their countries move to the US.

In that respect I did not realize the potential impact on Singapore. In 2022, pharmaceutical manufacturing contributed to about 4% of our GDP and is about 13.7% of our total manufacturing value add on. Total employment arising from this industry alone is 24,000 skilled jobs. All the top pharmaceutical companies have manufacturing facilities here

So if any of this goes to the US, we will feel the impact.

One of my colleagues had purchased this SUV, a Zeeker 009 some 3 months back. His version was a dual motor car and now the single motor version has arrived.

I test drove this car today. Superb specifications and very high tech. It has napa leather seats with massage functions, air suspension and a range of 600km. With 30 Yamaha speakers and a very fast wireless charger. Very comfortable drive. And it costs $323k. Much cheaper than my i5 which has lower specifications with no air suspension!

At this rate, who would want to pay more money for a car with lower quality? The Chinese cars will dominate the EV car market.

Yesterday was this day trip. A rather interesting experience. And since I have not been to JB in ages, I decided that I would go along on this trip to experience what JB is like now.

There was a time when I used to go to JB regularly. I would go there to eat, buy things and pump petrol, even on a Saturday. I remember there was an occasion when I went up to JB with 3 other colleagues for lunch and came back to the office by 230pm. Strange how getting through the causeway was such a breeze then.

Anyway the arrangement was for an Alphard to pick us up from the office at 11am. Cleared the Singapore and JB immigration fairly efficiently, although there was a big bit more traffic on the JB side.

One group went to the KSL mall where they apparently have fresh keropok and local cakes. Another group went to have a massage. I went to the Megamall to have lunch. Lunch was dim sum. I thought it was rather expensive but perhaps it was the duck and the char siew that jacked up the price.

Thereafter we went to the Aeon Mall. Nothing much there except there was a Mr Sotong store. They are only in JB and they are popular, selling sotong and dried fruits. I bought some dried fruits, apricots and bentong ginger. Shall try them this weekend!

Instead of going to this mall, the other option was to have durians. But I didn’t feel that I could eat durians after lunch and still have dinner so I gave that a skip. Some of them went. I was told it is between seasons and so the durians were not of the top quality.

Dinner was at Senibong Bay Seafood restaurant. I would recommend this place. Very good food and well priced. Food came quickly and so we managed to leave the restaurant by 830 pm.

There was no jam on the JB side but a bit more traffic on the Singapore side. The drop off was my house which I reached by 945pm.

The cost of the car with the driver is $350, and if you have a party of at least 4 it’s well worth the trip!

Enjoyed my day!

Last night marked the coming into force of this FTA. Since I am part of the Singapore Mexico Chamber of Commerce, I was invited to the event organized by MTI at the Fullerton Hotel.

The FTA is apparently a 28 volume document and is meant to cover trade with Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. As only Chile and Peru have ratified it so far, it has come into force vis a vis them. Mexico is expected to ratify later this year.

I must confess I don’t know the details of this FTA but clearly FTAs are going to be fashionable in the foreseeable future.

But was good to catch up with friends!

Democracy has been defined as the right of a citizens to choose who governs them. It appears to be a Greek concept and the word is derived from 2 Greek words demos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning power. Its origins are in the city state of Athens from about 300 BCE. Presumably learned people would gather, hear ideas, debate, listen to different points of view and then decide. So power belongs to the people who would have the right to choose their leaders. But even then it appears not everyone was equal. This right to choose was not given to women, slaves, foreigners and children. Even by this time it was noted that democracy would work in a small state with smaller number of people exercising their choice but may cause chaos or a breakdown in a larger state or with a larger group of people making decisions.

As opposed to democracy, there was autocracy, which is the absolute right to rule and govern, independent of the choice of the people.

Monarchies fall into this category. In England, the monarchs initially had the absolute power to rule, start wars, confiscate property and deprive people of their life and liberty. There was a revolution against this and eventually absolute monarchy was abolished. Instead a Parliament, elected by the people was given the right to pass laws and govern. But even then in the UK, the right to vote to elect members to Parliament was only given to property owning males. This restricted to voting group in England to about 10% of the people living in the country.

So as a result of colonisation, democracy was gifted to the colonies upon independence. We have therefore inherited this.

By the various suffrage movements in the late 1990s, the right to vote eventually was universally extended to everyone who was a citizen irrespective of gender, age, race, education, employment, wealth or properly owning, whether they pay taxes, served in the army or length of time they had been citizens.

But is everyone really equal? We know they are not. Everyone is different. Their contributions to the country and community are different. Some serve and contribute much in terms of time and money. Others receive. Some raise families and bring up their children to be good citizens and others don’t. Some make it a point to keep abrest of what’s happening in the world and in their country and the impact of various events around the world and others have no clue and make no effort to know anything. Some people read and think deeply about issues and some just focus on social media. Some serve in the army with relish and some try to avoid it. Some are law abiding and others are not.

If this is the case, then should everyone be treated equally when it comes to voting?

In his book, George Yeo notes that LKY had thought about this and suggested that married Singaporeans be given 2 votes instead of one. Presumably being married would make them think more responsibly about how they exercise their vote. Not perfect but an idea.

George Yeo then wrote to Cabinet to suggest that everyone above 18 be given one vote. But when the person is married or has a family, he or she would have 2 votes. This would revert back to 1 when they turn 50. Again an idea and in my view also not perfect. And it seems no one in cabinet was in favor of this.

A good friend told me that on election day, he saw some people arriving at the polling station in such a state that it was so clear to him they had no idea why they were there or what they were doing. Another good friend sent me a picture of a Singaporean doing something so bizarre and wondered whether everyone having one vote was the best way to elect members to Parliament. Should a person who can’t exercise basic common sense or intelligence even be given a vote.

This is controversial. The idea of democracy in its perfect form was meant for a smaller group of people with commonality in their thinking, race, education and status. If there is a vast difference between the people in a country in terms of education levels, economic strengths, contribution levels to society and perhaps even race, would this work? What if in such circumstances, the elected are held to ransom by the masses and the only way to then get their votes is to appease them with populist moves which may not be in the best interest of a country?

So where do we go from here. Status quo? Start a discussion on this?

appeasemebt