nocturne.noctalis.com ♀ Living in Sin

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[ red_a02 ] Shuzhen – The first episode was a lot of fun, cos it had an interesting cocktail of sexual tension and smooth fight choreography. This episode is like the awkward aftermath...
27 Aquarius 13 18:13
[ vermilion_2 ] YAPX – I understand that most of your stories are dialogue-based and heavy on retorts and counter-retorts. This one felt unnecessarily circular. It starts with a cool premise: a killer/villain/vigilante uses Lent to swear off something that should be second nature to him (I suppose), and then talks about a story. The link between the two (giving up killing & the story) isn’t a 100% fit. Maybe instead of “let me tell you a story”, it could be “hey, you see I even passed a guy up for death today!” or equivalent. Something to drag Lorelei into the banter and the premise. // That’s my only complaint. I’m not a big fan of dialogue-based stories, but I can make a exception for this.
14 Aquarius 13 08:03
[ 130204 ] YAPX – Good pace, good characters, great dialogue. The thing I like best is a combination of the three: how you build up their pseudo-relationship through all that back-and-forth exchange. Somehow, you craft a unique, strange relationship: from any one point in the story, both of them are manipulative, victimised and hypocrites - though not all at once. // On word choices, I felt you could change the word “janitor” (“cleaner” or “uncle” would’ve given a different, but more acute local flavour to it). Mostly because, it’s connotes an added level of difference through: class. Whether or not you intended it, by portraying the “janitor” and “student” you bring out the fact that he’s stuck there socially in all sense of the word. It made the part where he says he reads books during weekends completely out-of-context and weird. // Also, there’s too much “sliding” in and out of the room. Not sure if that’s intentional repetition, or just a lack of other words. // I thought that the girl’s own background is pretty compelling. Even after everything, I can’t tell if she’s speaking the truth. Because I’m all for unreliable narrators and characters, I can still find her well-thought out. But other readers might lose patience or wonder at her sudden change of heart at the final moment.
04 Aquarius 13 08:48
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Living in Sin – Caesar’s Wife
♠ 04 Pi♓es 2k9, Woden’s Day ♣

There is a saying, not oft heard in our time, which goes “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”

Pika.

This, you see, is the principle behind the constant law suits from the PAP. That none shall doubt the integrity of our leaders, none shall doubt the integrity of our judiciary.

If I may digress for a moment –

Say I have $100. I invest $40 into eggs, let’s call them Citieggs, which I put into one basket. I invest the rest into other eggs, in various other baskets. 40% of my eggs are in one basket.

The morning after the morning after, my Citieggs turn out to be sub-prime eggs (I had been warned about this, but, what the hell, cheap must buy), and all of them hatch into radioactive, toxic chicks. Strangely, people are still willing to buy toxic chicks, and they are not worthless. They’re now worth $4.

The other eggs, though, are good, sound investments, Shineggs, and ABCeggs, and other such, which lose only a small fraction of their value from the contagion.

My total eggs are now worth $40. And the value of the sub-prime eggs make up 4/40 = 10% of all my baskets.

10% in one basket, 90% spread out across all other baskets.

Hey, I’m diversified!

That was a sound investment strategy.

Huat.

Temasek didn’t lose money in spite of being diversified. Temasek is diversified because it lost money.

Temasek is a case of the basket.

Back to the main story.

When Ho Ching was placed in charge of Temasek, we grumbled, we muttered. She didn’t get the job by sleeping with the boss, you told us. Oh no, she’s good at what she does. Okay, fine, didn’t sleep with boss. Okay, good at what she does, sure.

You gave us your word. We took it.

Now, when Temasek is diversified ex post facto, what are we supposed to think? How is she good at her job?

I think, in getting her resignation before the chickens came home to roost, that the PAP has, at least, stood by its principles.

List by Tags [ singapore politics ]

« Living in Sin – The Politics of Silence «

» Living in Sin – Police Annoyed By Blowjobs »

ken – about the profits over the years not outweighing the loss, we won't really know for sure. and to be fair, a significant portion of the investment community thought citibank was a good buy. back then, the phrase was "too big to fail" and they got a pretty good deal too (it seemed like it at that time). when the common investor was only allowed to buy common stock, they were offered convertibles which acted like bonds paying 7% interest per annum until they were converted to common stocks.
04 Pisces 2k9 19:24
ken – but yes. 40% in a single deal is a tad much
04 Pisces 2k9 19:25
nocturne – Profits over the years would be under someone else's watch. Which high profile purchase under Ho has done well? The "everyone thought so" argument is fair insofar as one is a teenager, a lemming or Sarah Palin. There are few positions more vital to our country than hers. I don't think being able to follow conventional wisdom is good enough. Convention wisdom, is, after all, what bubbles are made of. It wasn't 40% in Citi; it was 40% in banks, including Merrill.
04 Pisces 2k9 21:13
ken – yes it was 40% in financials not citigroup alone. my bad. as for the everyone thought so point, it was not so much an excuse for them as pointing out the sheer difficulty in knowing or predicting just how bad the crisis would pan out much less impact citigroup, then the largest bank in the world. even if you consider the mavericks who were signaling trouble at Citi, ala Meredith Whitney, they didn't anticipate such a precipitous fall. also consider that these mavericks or outliers have always made outrageous calls. if they're wrong, they simply fade into the background but they enjoy a meteoric rise should they be right(whether by skill or sheer luck)
07 Pisces 2k9 07:05
nocturne – I understand your point, no one saw this coming. However, I think that, while a mistake that everyone makes may be an understandable mistake, it is still a mistake. Ho Ching was brought in to change Temasek's direction from a passive investor to an active one, spreading our money to other shores. Like the Town Councils, Temasek was allowed to take greater risks. Greater risks that we'd be better off not taking. Anyhow, it's one thing if you can't see this coming, and only invested, say, 20% of your portfolio. It's quite another when you invested 40%. I think, if one could look at Temasek's numbers, one would be horrified.
08 Pisces 2k9 01:35

329 words / 1620

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