It's time for me to talk about the shitshow that is British politics. I was very excited when we finally got rid of that idiot Boris Johnson but with Liz Truss in charge now - where do I even begin? I thought I'd use the Q&A format to answer some of the questions that my friends from other countries have asked me as they have watched this shit show unravel.
Q: How did you end up with Liz Truss as PM?
A: When enough ministers and MPs rebeled against Johnson, that started the whole process of replacing the leader of the Conservative party, in the earlier stages of the process, there was a list of several candidates that only Conservative MPs could choose from but in the final round, the winner was chosen by the wider Conservative party. We're not just talking MPs or politicians here but ordinary people who have paid £25 a year to join that party (approximately 140,000 took part in this). The average age of your average Conservative party member is "very old, with one foot in the coffin". The early rounds of voting narrowed the field down to Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak - when you look at just the votes of the MPs, Sunak was ahead of Truss as he was seen as a safer pair of hands to handle the economy. However, in the eyes of the typical Conservative party member who are very old, they simply put aside any common sense relating to the economy and simply picked the white candidate over the Asian candidate. Before you even have to ask, that's their racism which put Truss in power. They picked the white candidate, rather than the right candidate and that's just racism.
Q: Are you serious about the racism amongst the older Conservative members?
A: Of course! Look, these people are not going out on a Saturday night to beat up Asian people, this is purely a private decision when presented the choice between a white and an Asian prime minister - they expressed a preference based on skin colour and racism rather than reason. Politics is the ultimate game of popularity and Sunak didn't do enough to win over that particular demographic. This is why politics is a really tough game to play given this 'popularity' aspect of it.
Q: Why did this 'mini-budget' crash the economy?
A: Truss and her ex-chancellor Kwarteng announced a mini-budget which involved slashing taxes for the rich whilst slashing public spending in a bid to promote economic growth. It was all bullshit really, it was an excuse to make the rich richer and say a great big 'fuck you' to the poor. Truss had worked for Shell for four years and has strong links to the energy companies whom in turn have always supported her. Thus it was the kind of mini-budget that was akin to her saying thank you to her rich supporters and donors by giving them the kind of tax cuts that would make Boris Johnson look left wing. Oh she is so right wing that she wouldn't care if pensioners starved and froze to death in their thousands this winter, but the problems for her started when the markets didn't respond well to this mini-budget: both the stock market and the pound collapsed - let's be clear, this was a self-induced crisis that Liz Truss' awful policies had crashed. Things were so fucking bad that the Bank of England had to step in to prevent the collapse of many British pensions - a lot of British pensions invest in government gilts and bonds but when the corrupt government is so fucking incompetent that they crash the economy whilst trying to give some perks to their very rich donors, then the cost of borrowing goes up because the government is no longer seen as credit worthy compared to before. Yeah, when it is obvious that your government is as fucking corrupt and dishonest as an African dictator, then the markets respond accordingly. As a result, interests rates in the UK have gone up as the cost of borrowing has gone up and now many ordinary folks who have mortgages on their homes are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments and are basically fucked. Sorry, I am gonna swear a lot, but this whole situation is so fucked up. Liz Truss is not just fucking corrupt but woefully incompetent.
A: There's a certain element of "look at how Boris Johnson broke every law, every rule and he still survived so long as PM, rules are for losers, fuck the rules - I'm the fucking PM and I'll do what the fuck I want." Truss does feel like she cannot be easily replaced: the Conservative party has just gone through the messy process of replacing their leader and the next general election isn't due till 2025. By that token, Truss is counting on the fact that replacing her just after she has barely started is not going to make the party look good and that the economy would some how get over this self-induced crisis and by the time it is time to go to the polls in 2025, this whole episode would be but a distant memory. She is probably looking at the damage she has done and thinking, "yeah I fucked up but do you have any idea just how fucking retarded the average British voter is? This is a nation of fucking idiots, they gave Boris Johnson such a majority when his campaign was mostly just hot air and lies, yet most of those voters are just so fucking stupid they trusted him!"
Q: I know you're saying this in jest but could that be true though?
A: Poor people constantly make decisions which trap them in poverty. I am an example of a person who came from a poor family but I am intelligent, I have constantly been able to exercise good judgment and make good decisions that has allowed me to access social mobility so I have become rich as an adult despite my working class background. The only reason why Truss was able to take over from Johnson was because the working classes voted for Johnson at the last general election which is ridiculously - the Conservatives are a party who take care of the rich. The rich get richer and the poor are well and truly fucked under the Conservatives. The majority of the people in this country are poor and working class whilst only a minority are rich - yet somehow, the Conservatives have managed to dupe and manipulate the stupid working class voters into this kind of 'turkeys voting for Christmas' behaviour and that's why Truss has every reason to believe that she can fuck the working classes over big time and she could still count on their support because, they're fucking stupid; why do you think they're poor in the first place? They keep making bad decisions that trap them in poverty.
Q: The polls show Labour having a massive lead over the Conservatives at the moment, surely that's bad news for Truss as she risks being replaced by her own party before the next general election in 2025?
A: Yes, that's true - but that's a risk she is willing to take. So the best case scenario for her is that she clings onto power for about two years three months and loses the next general election, then we shall have a Labour government in 2025.
Q: How long can Truss cling onto power?
A: I don't even dare to say, of course I wanna see her gone but she could cling on for a while yet, watch this space. But then again, I have never ever supported the Conservative party in my life and I resent them, thus I am enjoying watching Truss struggle to hold on to power. It is a shit show of incompetence, but then I feel so much schadenfreude watching it.
Q: But is she better than Johnson though? You really hated Johnson?
A: Oh please. That's like asking me, "would you rather be bitten by a tarantula or a scorpion?" Both options are terrible!
Q: Who could replace Truss as leader of the Conservatives before the next election?
A: There has been talk of Sunak trying to oust Truss - after all, he would be the second choice having lost to Truss in that selection process and he was credited with getting the British economy through the Covid period. He is just as corrupt as her but at least I don't think Sunak would be foolhardy and stupid enough to do something to crash the economy the way she did. Some have suggested that Johnson can still contemplate a comeback if things go really badly - there's nothing to stop him from trying but the odds are stacked against him given the way he was ousted only earlier this year. Then of course, there may be someone else who is relatively unknown and has a clean record putting themselves forward as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start rebranding the party after this horrible period. So out with the old and in with the new, the Conservative party badly needs a makeover. They'd really want to hit the button for a hard reset and reboot.
Q: Would Jeremy Hunt make a better leader than Truss?
A: Yes of course but you're setting the bar very low Truss fucking crashed the economy within days of taking office, therefore if we had a prime minister who just sat in the office and did absolutely nothing for a month, then they would outperform Truss. Thus a plastic spoon would do better than Truss as prime minister as the plastic spoon is an inert object, incapable of crashing the economy like that. When a plastic spoon can do a better job than you - I rest my case.
A: No, I happen to have integrity which is something I would never compromise on. In order to prove myself in the world of banking, I had to work twice as hard as the privileged rich kids who could land an internship at UBS or get a job interview at Morgan Stanley if daddy were to make a phone call. My father is so uneducated and working class, I got no help whatsoever from my parents. Thus when I see a rich PM giving tax cuts to the rich, I sneer at that - I see that as corruption. I believe the economy would be most efficient if talented but poor kids like me would be given the help we need to succeed, so we could access the right kind of education and opportunities that the rich kids have. Helping the rich is a terrible idea because I have seen woefully incompetent rich kids be given good jobs through nepotism, only to totally suck and fail at the job. I'm not left wing, I don't believe that any good can be achieved by doing the Robin Hood thing in taxing the rich and simply giving the wealth of the country to the poor; fuck that shit, I'm an investment banker and that sounds like a thoroughly stupid deal to me. The way I see it, I would redistribute resources in a method inspired by Squid Game: I won't be shooting anyone in the head if they fail, but I would give young people all kinds of tests as part of their education to test just how potentially valuable they will be to society (thus testing skills like business acumen as opposed to pure mathematics) and if they can prove themselves, they earn credits which will count towards their employability - the more credits you have, the closer to the front of the cue you will be for the top jobs. Rich but dumb kids will be at the back of the queue in this system, but it's okay, I'm sure they can live off their parents' wealth and we can keep them away from the good jobs so they cannot cause any more harm to the wider public the way Liz Truss has.
Q: Squid Game - that's the stuff of fiction, I grant you it was a great show but seriously?
A: Well I believe we need a paradigm shift from the current status quo! Currently, it is rich people using their wealth and power to transfer that privilege to their children no matter how stupid and useless their children turn out to be; that's why we see people like Truss and Johnson in position of power and I have seen way too many rich kids in the world of banking access senior positions despite being woefully incompetent at their jobs. Then you have the poor kids from the working class family who believe that the whole system is rigged and that they expect the government to help them by giving them handouts, through the taxation system to redistribute the wealth. I was lucky in that I came from a poor, working class family but I got lucky with my IQ - someone referred to it as the genetic lottery. That's something that parents have little control over, whether or not their children turn out to be clever or stupid and the outcome is totally random. I like the idea of rewarding a random outcome - it's like a lucky draw and that is far more fair than the current system. It completely randomizes the how good jobs and positions of power will be distributed from one generation to the next, there will be winners and losers with my kind of system but I think it sure as hell is better than the awful status quo where the rich are so corrupt and the poor are stupid. I do dream of a more egalitarian society, an utopia based on merit.
Q: Aren't you worried that a Labour government might raise taxes for the rich like you though?
A: I've lived under a Labour government before from 1997 to 2010 - sure I was first a student and then a young man joining the workforce at that time, but it was not as if the rich were taxed to the point where it was like Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor. Things have been pretty bad for everyone under Johnson and are set to get a lot worse under Truss - look at how she fucked up so badly in a month and that's including the mourning period for the Queen when nobody in government did any real work. Taxes is just one component of the government's functions - I want a government that will be competent enough to run the country and not crash it to the ground. Allow me to give you an analogy: years ago when I was in Sri Lanka, I was supposed to get a train from Nuwara Eliya back to Colombo but the train was cancelled due to flooding on the line. So I had to scramble to get a taxi that would do that five hour drive and we met this guy who offered a super cheap fare but when we saw the state of his car, I didn't even think that would make it back to my hotel to pick up my bags, never mind drive all the way to Colombo. I had to politely decline and then we went with a guy who was more expensive but at least his car looked half decent, like it wasn't going to break down halfway on that long journey. So I did travel back to Colombo with the guy who charged me more in his nicer car: low taxes is a false economy if that government is going to crash everything from the stock markets to the currency. You need a conducive environment for the economy to grow and Truss has been hopeless in this aspect! The markets don't play politics, they respond to policy and her policies have been stupid - so I say, bring on a Labour government already.
Q: You just hate everyone do you Alex?
A: I hate the Conservatives as they represent the corrupt rich, privileged upper classes in this country. I hate the poor working classes because they represent the kind of filth that I came from and worked so hard to escape. It has been an awfully long time since I found a politician that I truly liked and admired, that would be Obama. The world was definitely a better place when he was president. Okay that's it from me on this topic. The UK political landscape is a unique shit show of its own and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have on it. So over to you, what do you think about Liz Truss and her shit show of corruption? Please do leave a comment below to share your thoughts and many thanks for reading.
Hey Alex. When I was in Singapore I didn't like certain things like the authoritarian government, high housing prices, Asian mindset, etc. But after moving to the US one thing I do admire is the social mobility aspect of Singapore. Many people are middle class, and even if you are born working class there is still a high probability of making it to NUS/NTU if you are smart and hardworking enough, and then afterwards landing a high paying job. Here in America there's just way too many hurdles to jump for a working class kid to get a good K-12 education, then the right kind of university to land a job at a decent company. It's not even that Singapore has high taxes, they just spend wisely when it comes to education. Meanwhile the UK has a more robust welfare state, with universal healthcare and the dole, but like you said this is a Robinhood approach which keeps the poor dependent on the government and does not provide social mobility. Btw I didn't think of the racism aspect with regards to Rishi Sunak losing. That's a pity... He seemed competent at least.
ReplyDeleteYeah but at least in Singapore a person like you got to attend Raffles Institution without being super wealthy. In America the only way for a working class kid to attend a very good middle school or high school is to either A) live in a very expensive area which pays high property taxes that funds the local public school, or B) have wealthy parents to pay for private school. In either case you have to be upper middle class or wealthy. In Singapore they have the "squid game system", or in other words the PSLE which allows a very bright working class kid like you to attend a good school. But yes I do admit that educational spending in Singapore is very low, so it punches above its weight in terms of educational attainment due to the Asian will to succeed and do well in school. However, this can be stifling for innovation because it doesn't allow much room for creativity. What is a right answer when it isn't multiple choice? Nobody knows...
DeleteHowever, at the postgraduate level the Singapore government does spend tonnes of money. I was co-authors on a paper with a guy who won a scholarship from the Singapore government, which paid for him in full to attend Stanford at both the undergrad and PhD level(60k usd/year tuition for 9 years. Not including living costs). As a result he owed the government a 6 year service contract after graduation, and is now a professor at NUS in the physics department. This is how the SG government was able to raise the university ranking for NUS/NTU so fast, they literally paid for their citizens to attend the best universities in the world then chained them to a several years long contract to come back. This guy was not from a rich family at all, in fact I suspect he grew up middle class or working class just from his accent.
Although it's nice to live in luxury, not everyone wants to be a high flyer. Good for you setting the bar high and achieving it, but don't forget you've been willing to make sacrifices other people would not. Who would even bother to learn 25 languages Alex? I know very intelligent people who are fine with being monolingual, so what of people of average intelligence? Yeah I mistakenly assumed I was in the bottom 80% based on my shitty stipend alone, but I suppose most of the world sees me like they see a medical student. Poor now, barely earning anything even, but very rich after graduation. My main gripe with the Singaporean system is the crazy working hours. Having a roof over your head and some spending money wouldn't be so bad if you had free time for hobbies and raising a family. That's basically how French or Dutch people live.
I wouldn't say getting into Raffles is a golden ticket, but it is one good step along the way of multiple steps. Getting into Raffles means it would be easier to get into a good JC, which would make it easier to do well on one's A levels and get into a good university instead of ending up at SIM. In America some schools in bad neighborhoods don't even teach calculus or algebra, so even if you're a bright student attending this school you won't be as prepared to do well on the SAT and get into a good university compared to someone who attended a better school. Sure the Singaporean system isn't perfect, but there are far worse systems of public education with regards to class equity. Anyway, my point was, there is a small snowball effect when it comes to K-12 education.
DeleteHow do you think Singapore could grow out of the "80 hour workweek HDB dream"? Like you said, there are far more educated people than there are jobs. For every scholar who was sent to Stanford, there's probably 3 more people driving for Grab or running a hawker stall. I admit growing up in the top 10% and currently living in the top 20% makes me blind to how the bottom 80% lives. But also, if people work 80 hours a week in Sg, why hasn't their standard of living increased? I think there has to be some kind of social contract where everyone agrees they are better off improving productivity than increasing working hours so everyone can be happy. And that being happy does not mean one is lazy. In Germany they have a robust middle class because of all their small to medium enterprises which operate in very niche roles with very high productivity. There are SMEs in Singapore, but it seems these jobs are somewhat looked down upon compared to working at a big multinational company or for the government because they don't pay as much. But in Germany it's highly respected to work for a "mittlestand".
Btw regarding turkeys voting for Christmas, here in the US we're about to have the midterm elections for people in Congress(equivalent of MPs in the UK). And according to polling data we're going to get a Republican majority, even after Biden approved student loan forgiveness. And the people voting Republican are the working class in America, even though republicans want to cut government spending among other things like social issues regarding LGBT rights, women's rights, gun control, etc. I'm just like "why? What have Republicans done for you? Are they even promising anything besides what Liz Truss has done for the UK?" I may be in the top 20% but there is no way I'd ever vote Republican except for the pro business side, but this can't come at the expense of social programs and social issues.
DeleteWell let's put it this way, if you went to one of those terrible schools in the US that you described, like a real nasty ghetto school, then you're doomed for life. We have schools like that in the UK too y'know. But there are limits to what a good secondary school can do for a student. To begin with, a lot of the teachers there are simply average - they don't have to try too hard as they know that their students are usually driven by pushy Asian parents to succeed and will receive extra help outside school anyway if their pushy Asian parents are willing to spend a lot of money to pay for expensive private tuition. Picture this: if a poor working class kid gets into a good school, he would still be at a major disadvantage compared to his peers because his parents simply don't have the spare cash to pay for all this extra help outside school and the playing field isn't level at all - quite the opposite in fact. And schools like Raffles are quite underhand in protecting their reputation - there was a super rich kid who had Filipino parents, he knew he was moving to the USA (to Cincinnati I believe) after his O levels so he was unmotivated to study knowing that no one in America was gonna care what he scored for his O levels. So the school basically told him, either you leave the school voluntarily before the exams or we expel you, your choice but you're not sitting for the O levels exams as a student to drag down our scores and spoil our clean record of achieving great results. I've seen other kids who struggled with their studies simply get forced out of the system one way or another. Like I pointed out, the problem in Singapore is that there are not enough professional jobs for a whole new generation of very well educated young people so it is incredibly harsh and cruel.
DeleteThat's why so many Singaporeans are taught to believe that if they can live in a HDB flat whilst working 70 - 80 hours a week, then that's as good as it gets and they should be grateful for that. I'm like, really? I work like 5 hours a day, I go to the gym 5 or 6 times a week and I get between 8 - 9 hours of sleep a day. In the last 10 years, I never work more than 25 hours a week and yet I earn so much more than the average Singaporeans who put in 75 hours a week - it's like they work TRIPLE the number of hours I put in a week and get paid less? Why do they put up with such low productivity? That's the key issue here as Singapore's GDP is only high because people work such crazy long hours - it's like they've never heard of the phrase 'work smart, not hard'.
Hey Alex, is it true that some parts of London have very high knife crime amongst the youth? Like in East London? Not that New York doesn't also have a ghetto with high crime and terrible schools, that's the Bronx. Oh yeah you've mentioned before that Raffles does game the rankings by kicking out failures who could lower their ranking by being lazy. Personally, I do know people in Singapore who did graduate with a degree in engineering but couldn't find a stable high paying job. Or even people who did land an engineering job with an NTU/NUS degree but didn't end up using it very much(as in, forgetting calculus). Like you said, there aren't enough jobs for these people because Singapore doesn't have that much innovation with regards to tech.
DeleteY'know Alex, I've been thinking about your last post where we complained about our terrible parents. Don't you feel people like us are extra motivated to succeed in life simply because we never want to be unemployed, poor, and have to move back in with our parents? I want to make so much money that even if I lose my job I can afford to rent an apartment by myself and not have to move back in with my mother. I'd rather be homeless than live with a narcissist. But I notice this motivation has lead me to make a lot of sacrifices in my early 20s other people would have never made, but it has put me in a very good position today so I guess it was worth it. If I didn't have such a terrible parent, I suppose I would've taken it easier knowing I have a safety net.
Why put up with low productivity? Yeah this baffles me too... maybe people aren't used to the idea that if they simply work 1/3rd as much they aren't gonna suddenly be homeless. Also I don't think the Singaporean government is ready to change just yet. I've seen how they work the scientists in academia. It is like you said, work hard, not smart. I mean, someone even told me the Singaporean government had this "20 year plan" to win a Nobel Prize, and it was an Italian scientist telling me that who was laughing because "they won't even take risks and innovate, so how are they gonna win a Nobel Prize?"
It isn't just East London, but various parts of the city which are unsafe along with other cities which have pockets of extreme poverty as well where you just wouldn't go there as it would be very unsafe. But as you've said, even if the kids in Singapore do make it to a good school and get a degree from NUS, I have still met countless adult Singaporeans who have failed to make the transition from being a brilliant student to being a rich professional with a well paid job. It boils down to the 'Big Mac index' - how many hours of work do you have to do to earn enough to buy a big Mac? For most Singaporeans, given they work on average 3 times longer than I do (25 vs 75 hours a week), then their Big Mac Index is pretty poor. Thus they end up with a situation whereby they work 75 hours a week, live at home with their parents in a HDB flat and have to tell themselves to be content as things are never ever gonna get any better.
DeleteIt's like my sister who is content with taking one holiday a year. She cancelled hers this year as my father got Covid the week she was supposed to go on holiday and she was scared she was about to test positive imminently. Then we talked about next year and she has already committed to going to Australia with her friends for 1 week and I just rolled my eyes - 1 week holiday in 2 years. How insanely ridiculous is that? I get restless when I don't get to go on a long weekend away after a couple of weeks and I'm currently planning my 2 week trip to the UAE in November. She used to use the pandemic as an excuse for not taking holidays but the fact is, she is not just expected to work 75 hours a week but she is expected to keep that up throughout the year WITHOUT taking any days off for holidays - that's the reality for many Singaporeans. It's awful.
If I may give you a little context as to why my sister has to endure such working conditions: it is because her department at her office is chronically understaffed, thus you have like 3 people doing the work of 6 people and the department isn't given the budget to hire more people. She is a civil servant, the employer is the government ultimately so there's no wriggle room in terms of trying to negotiate better working conditions if they are having to put in such long hours to try to even keep up with the relentless workload if there's just not enough people in her department to keep that ship running and afloat. So even if she is productive, the understaffing situation means that she and her team have no choice but to put in those ridiculously long working hours all the freaking time.
DeleteQuestion, does your sister make good money? This is a government job, I heard they pay well. If I were her and in a job with long hours but good pay, I would have left ages ago and used the savings to live off while looking for a job in the private sector. I don't know why she puts up with the job though. Does she really love her job this much? I mean I also have an understaffing situation at work which is why I'm plotting my way into tech/finance. I think this attitude of "just putting up with it" is why the culture doesn't change. In a country like Australia or the UK people would have left for better jobs with shorter hours ages ago.
DeleteBtw, in America I hear things like banking has long hours that a lot of analysts at Goldman Sachs recently quit to work in private equity or something. But then I also heard in Singapore there's some Australian based finance companies which offer very good benefits and decent working hours because Australians have really good labor rights.
I think there are several factors when you talk about 'does your sister make good money'? It's not that simple and straight forward: firstly, in absolute terms, whilst she makes less than me, she is still making more than a lot of her peers and quite frankly, it's quite unfair to compare anyone to me. I don't know if you've been following the conversation with Sandra below but look, she's a married woman who will eventually have a child or 2 or more children depending on what she wants but once she is a mother, her earnings will be spent on bringing up the child(ren) rather than accumulating wealth which can in turn be invested well and generate passive income. Whereas my eldest sister is in my position, ie. she has been in a position to be able to accumulate wealth with no dependents draining her earnings so she is definitely a lot better off than her peers. But even if the government job pays well, there's 3 people in her department when it really ought to have 6 because everyone in that governmental organization just accepts that it is completely normal to have no life outside work, put in 75 hours a week and fun foreign holidays are the stuff of fantasies that you look forward to after you retire (but never when you're working). I don't think she loves her job that much but it's more like "I'm already in my 50s, how the heck am I going to find something else like that with a similar pay elsewhere? I'm too old, I shall just stick with this until the day I retire as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel already, not long now, just several more years."
DeleteAs for jobs in banking, I don't think you can lump them all into one monolithic entity. I have friends who work in back office and they're glorified accountants with an insane amount of paperwork to get through, it's tedious, it's technical and the hours are long. Whereas you have people like me who work in strategic planning and business development, we're more the kinds who work very short hours and have a lot more fun. Thus I don't think it's a US vs Australia issue but rather what department you work in and the nature of the work. I get paid for good ideas which I can dream up whilst lying in the bath listening to relaxing music (or training in the gym in the name of clearing my mind to process my thoughts) whilst my back office colleagues are looking at tons of data on a daily basis to try to clear the never ending workload.
So in the case of my sister - in terms of absolute take home pay + amount of wealth she has accumulated, she is doing pretty well. But if you then break down her hourly rate based on how much she earns divided by how many hours she works to earn that money, then it is a dismal figure I'm afraid that suggests poor productivity (ref: the Big Mac Index).
DeleteY'know, maybe your sister could quit and move to a country with cheaper living costs and just retire early. I see what you mean by people in Singapore are content to work 70-80 hours a week as long as they own a hdb. Like I wouldn't be content with that at all, I'd put all my money into investments so I could generate a passive income and take a lower paying job with better hours.
DeleteHow about your other sister? The one with the son(your nephew)? In a previous post when you were talking about your parents giving free childcare, you mentioned she works till 10pm at night. Is that true? Like I can't imagine bringing up a child like that. I used to work in a semiconductor factory in Sg and I remember many people putting in overtime till 10pm at night, which is why I left. I couldn't imagine growing old in Singapore's corporate environment unless I was in a company with lots of lazy angmohs who worship at the altar of high productivity and work life balance haha.
Oh okay, so in banking it's all about the roles. The Goldman Sachs article was about the research analysts in a healthcare investment division. But these were new hires, and Goldman is notorious for making new hire work 100 hours a week because they should feel grateful to be selected by Goldman since they're getting paid a lot. But it seems other firms don't work their researchers too hard, especially the quant firms with a lax dress code and ping pong tables in the office haha.
Sigh, when you get me talking about my sister, I just feel sad. It's the classic case of the abuse wife who has such low self-esteem after having taken so much abuse she is convinced she doesn't deserve to be treated any better and thus she remains with the abusive spouse. My sister is the same, except the other party is the parents who treat her so badly. My sister once said to me that my parents are terrified of me because I stand up to them and they don't know how to react when I do that - my eldest sister is 'duty bound' to simply receive all that abuse from my parents. The worst part of it all is that she has done nothing to justify that abuse, my parents fucking hate each other - their marriage is completely messed up in so many ways, so what do they do? They take it out on the children and beat up the children because they are too frustrated and miserable - my sister just takes that abuse out of duty where I took a look at the situation and said, "this family is so ridiculously fucked up there's no love here at all, there's absolutely no reason for me to hang around and be a part of this ludicrous shit show you call a family, therefore I'm fucking off to get as far away from you as possible, see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya." That's why my sister is the way she is, so when the bosses at work treat her like crap and want her to work 80, even 90 hours a week - she just takes the abuse and does it without complaining instead of doing the rational thing and look for a better alternative.
DeleteSorry for all that swearing. This is my sister you're talking about - things are so royally fucked up I don't even know how to begin to help her and I get emotional talking about it.
DeleteAhh I get it now... because of the way your parents treat your sister, the way her bosses treat her is tame by comparison and she probably feels lucky she even has a job that pays well. I didn't think there was physical abuse involved, though mental and emotional abuse can be just as bad. I come from a similar situation, so I totally understand. It's hard to deprogram yourself to even just want to be happy. People call that "complex PTSD." Signs and symptoms include: never feeling safe, avoiding people like the plague, being obsessed with work achievements, difficulty sleeping, etc. I myself only recently felt comfortable addressing the fact that I come from an abusive situation after reading your blog and hearing you complain about your parents. Because everyone else around me either has good parents or doesn't openly talk about abuse at home. I get that mental health or even workplace abuse isn't taken seriously in Singapore... I mean I received really substandard care while I was there, a psychologist once said to me "but every parent loves their child!" It's like, what do they even teach psychologists licensed in Sg? Only in America or other western countries do people take it seriously.
DeleteI don't think it's healthy your two sisters still hang out with your parents... like you said, duty for what? Duty should only be reserved for good people who treat you well, not people who treat you like shit.
Yeah I've been following some of your travels on instagram. That looks like a really nice hotel! Like marina bay sands level luxurious. Is this a holiday to the middle east or a work trip?
Yes, the way the bosses just turn to her and say, "and I want this done by Monday morning 9 am", effectively meaning she has to work non-stop through the weekend to complete the assignment is a form of abuse but like so many people in her organization, they just accept that as normal. They are lucky if they get a week off in the entire year and work insane hours. My parents' abuse created this situation where my sister just takes endless abuse at work without complaining - just as well she is single as she might just end up an abused wife in a toxic relationship, instead she is at home living with her parents still receiving abuse from my parents. Like, where do I even begin? This is why we started the whole conversation of duty vs love - there's no love, but there's a sense of duty. That sense of duty can be quite strong even in the complete absence of any feelings of love and that's part of their culture.
DeleteI'm off to Dubai for 4.5 days of meetings but staying 11 days in total for some down time.
She still lives at home? Yeah Alex I think your sister hasn't dared to venture outside of her comfort zone. What duty though? I think duty is only there because it's the only way she feels good about herself. It's like when you criticize working class people for looking down on someone like Titus Low for being a "depraved degenerate" just because they aren't out sleeping around because they're so pious. But in reality Titus Low is probably happier being able to go out there and enjoy himself.
DeleteThis is a random question, but has your sister ever fallen in love with a (decent) guy? For a long time I didn't want to, and I probably would've been resigned to her fate had I not. But because I work in a male-dominated field it's very hard not to, and I suppose that's what made me want more for myself.
Oh that's so cool! I take it your company paid for the flight and hotel, and even meals. What is there to do in Dubai? Aside from visiting the landmarks.
The reason why she still lives at home with my parents and hasn't dared to venture outside her comfort zone is because she has been so traumatized from the decades of abuse at the hands of my evil parents that she doesn't have any confidence to do that. As for the sense of duty, I think it's a lot sadder than that - my sister is lonely. Her peers got married, had kids and are busy with their children and she has gotten to the age where there's a generation gap which would prevent her from hanging around someone your age. So the only people who are craving for her attention are my parents and it's some form of human interaction of course, but it's of a very toxic nature with people who just make endless demands on her and abuse her for the fun of it. I don't think she would adopt that kind of 'holier than thou' attitude on the issue of duty - gosh, her whole situation is even more tragic than you think because she is a lot more damaged than you think as a result of her decades of horrific abuse.
DeleteHas she ever fallen in love? Do you know what it is like to have such crushingly low self-esteem? Even if she liked someone at university or at work, do you think someone with such low self-esteem would dare to even talk to that guy? No, I know my sister only too well - she would say to herself, "that guy is very nice but he would never like someone like me, so I don't even dare to talk to him. Even my own parents hate me so much, I am not worthy of love, he would never like me even if I do like him." It's too late for my sister how (she's older than me and I'm freaking ancient already myself) but I am not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't do when it comes to love. I just want you to avoid that nasty, horrible cycle of low self-esteem that I saw my sister suffer from all these years.
Yeah it's all on company expenses. Remember the three pillars of tourism: nature, culture and fun. There's plenty of nature in Dubai once you get out of the city, plenty of local Arab culture for me to appreciate and if you have the money, there's no shortage of places to have fun.
I feel like we have the same sister actually... That's my sister's situation as well. My brother and I moved out, and my brother even told her she's welcome to move in with him, but she hasn't. Many guys have crushed on my sister growing up, but she doesn't have a good view of marriage or relationships because our parents didn't have a good marriage. And come to think of it my dad was too busy just trying to keep the lights on the only kid he was really nice to was me. My brother even said to my sister "why don't you go out and keep up with the friends you had in undergrad?" And my sister just makes up excuses, but I think she can't really imagine her friends valuing her that much because our mom doesn't value her even though they live together. I've told her to move out, but she just doesn't want to...
DeleteYeah I know what it's like to have bad self esteem. I grew up fat remember? I couldn't ask out my first guy so my best friend had to steal my phone and message him for me. But I guess I was lucky she did that, else I wouldn't have tried at all. Maybe I should steal my sister's phone and message one of the many male coworkers who've asked her out that she's declined...
Ooh the food must be good in Dubai. Middle Eastern bbq is amazing. That's amazing the company has an expense budget for you to take these fancy trips.
Well my sister is a good example of how low self-esteem can lead to irrational, poor choices. So you'll realize it's not something you can see on the outside, she goes to work, she smiles at her colleagues and nobody suspects what's going on in her head but she is suffering from low self-esteem everyday because of the long term trauma and damage from her childhood. As for Dubai, recently, I emerged the hero as my boss was about to use a solution that would cost the company US$125,000 a year in running costs and I found him an alternative that would cost just under US$10,000 a year to run whilst producing the same results. He said, run it by Jaime our technical expert to see if he thinks that the cheaper solution is acceptable and Jaime's email was like yes it's wonderful, Alex this is brilliant etc etc. Yes, I know I'm brilliant thank you. You see, even if my sister did do something like that, she wouldn't dare to talk about it as she would be scared of being accused of poor manners for showing off as that's the way she was brought up to believe that nobody would care even if she did something brilliant, that people would never be impressed with her. That's how people like her with low self-esteem fade into the background. I only have some self-esteem because I chose to rebel, not that my parents ever gave me any attention or love along the way, but I learnt the basic lesson that you have gotta start loving yourself even if no one loves you, so that's exactly what I'm doing!
DeleteYeah it's very easy to hide trauma. You don't really know until you get to know people well, and even then it can be frustrating for friends and family to tell this person to think differently.
DeleteOh wow, is this related to that bank account in Dubai vs. Singapore? I see how they paid for your business class flight to Dubai haha. I mean, it's not a bad thing to have good manners and not show off, upper class people are taught to do that constantly. But only around strangers, around friends and family it's okay to get validation.
Yeah I was surprised when you told me you used to think you were ugly during your secondary school days even though you were a national athlete gymnast with a really good bod. But then you mentioned your parents, which I totally understood. You've come a long way Alex! I know it must've been hard because I'm still on that journey as well...
Oh it's relating to another issue that the company is facing but that's what I do, whenever the company has to solve an issue, they run it by me and say okay this is what we intend to do but Alex, is this the best/cheapest way to do it and can you think of a better way? But I have built myself this reputation of being unashamedly intelligent, technical, brilliant and good at problem solving despite the fact that most of the time, I'm not even sure I know what to do but if you refuse to market yourself as a credible candidate, if you refuse to believe in yourself then how do you expect others to do so? The fact is like my sister, I was an ugly duckling with very low self-esteem and it's a personal choice to break out of that cycle: do I continue to punish myself for the mistakes of my parents or do I choose to love myself? Learning to love yourself is so important, it's a choice we have to make consciously.
DeleteI just got my hotel booking from head office: ME Dubai (part of the Melia Group). I love the location. It is central - I got even introduced to my boss' father on the Zoom call today and it was amazing to hear the way my boss described me to his father, LOL. Let's just say I've never had such kind things said about me in Spanish before and it was a joy to hear.
DeleteOh so that's what you do. You get hired based on your technical knowledge to solve issues related to finance and investing. That sounds like a very interesting job! Today I went to a boardgaming meetup, and somehow everyone was very interested to ask me questions about computing because I was the only scientist there. It made me feel smart for a day haha. Sometimes I do feel bad about indulging in that, but since you're gonna indulge, I will too. It's not like I'm hurting anyone doing this. I always tended to avoid complimenting myself because I hated the way my mom always bigged up herself. But there is a difference between intentionally disregarding someone else' feelings and hurting them, and appreciating yourself. They're not mutually exclusive but I've associated them together after growing up with so much abuse. Like just now when you were talking about yourself it didn't hurt me at all. Anyway, I also tested an experiment today which confirmed my theories, so I'm one more project towards finishing my PhD and have to update my LinkedIn soon to put down more things to attract quantitative finance jobs my way.
DeleteAww... it was a zoom call in Spanish too.
By the way, lately I've found that it's really hard for me to kick out toxic people from my life because of the abuse I grew up with. Growing up I just trained myself to focus on the good things my mom did, and completely ignore the bad just to stay sane because as a kid you depend on your parents to survive. The alternative is being a child/teen runaway...But like you said, treating yourself well includes believing you deserve better and kicking out people who don't treat you well. Not doing that means you won't let good people into your life because complex PTSD makes it hard to get close to them. I had so many problems being scared of caring guys who tried to get close that I had to reject many good men. Eventually I realized it was just me not thinking I deserved people being nice to me. So I totally get what is happening to your sister. She has grown up ignoring bad things because she couldn't do anything about it as a child. And she has no idea she is now in a position where she can eliminate bad things from her life, like changing jobs, retiring early, moving to a lower cost country, making new friends, moving out of her parents' house, etc. In your case you were like "fuck this, I am Alex the super smart guy who deserves better and is capable of finding better." I wish I had that confidence ages ago, but I'm trying to find it now.
DeleteI just had to unfriend the guy who broke up with me who begged to still be friends because we have such similar hobbies. But he only ever texted me if he had a question about physics/math, or needed a gaming buddy. It sounded like he didn't even care if I was happy or sad, just used me for fun. For a while I justified it by focusing on the good, and ignoring the bad, but that still leaves me empty inside and unable to form connections to good people. It hurt, I wish I didn't have to do it, but in the long term it should make me happier.
You've hit the nail on the head with regards to my sister focusing on the good and ignoring the bad. A lot of people in horrible circumstances do that - gosh if you were to look at what my father did, he worked for years at this school where he was bullied relentlessly by his colleagues. It must have been horrible to wake up in the morning everyday to go to work, knowing you hate your colleagues and they hated you as well. I know everyone feels some stress at work, right now I get that stress as I feel the need to prove myself to be the super smart guy I claim to be, I feel the need to deliver what I'd like to deliver and yes there's stress associated with trying to reach my own high standards of course; but in my father's case, it was a different kind of stress associated with bullying. Yikes. My father's situation was horrible. My bosses treat me so well in that when they decided to book the ME Dubai Melia (a luxury five star hotel) instead of the one they had originally proposed, they ran it by me to check if I was happy with the ME Dubai and I looked at the pictures on their website and it's like woah, that's super luxury, oh yeah that's fine. I'm used to people treating me well because I have made it a point to walk away when people treat me badly.
DeleteI remember this incident in the army, I was being treated very badly in a unit where the commander was a bully - everyone in there suffered so badly whenever the commander in charge was in a bad mood. I complained about it to my parents and my father was like, "what do you want me to do about it? Do you want me to go to the army camp and beat him up? Are you stupid or what? Just accept that you deserve to be treated like that and get on with it!" My father placed the blame on me for acting like a spoilt brat throwing a tantrum demanding to be pampered in the army instead of accepting that I had no basic dignity, no right to be asked to be treated fairly, that I was just working class scum who deserved all the abuse I got. My parents' approach to life was simply to lower your expectations and accept what life through at you, instead of saying, no I deserve better and walking away from a bad situation - sadly, my sister inherited that mindset from them instead of rejecting it the way I did.
I don't want to justify anything your parents did, but it does look like they were also victims. But being the victim doesn't mean they can shirk all responsibility. I mean I can't just sit here and expect complex PTSD to disappear, I have to go to therapy constantly just so I can find the will to be happy again. Well yeah there's a difference between work stress and abuse stress. At least with work you can do something about it, there's progress to be made everyday. And that's really nice they upgraded your hotel. Enjoy the luxurious bed, amazing pool, and international breakfast buffet. I hope as a quant they'll send me around the world... I don't mind explaining maths in person instead of over zoom.
DeleteJust accept you deserve to be treated like that? No wonder they remorselessly treat each other and their children like shit. Yeah not everyone "escapes", so to speak. It's hard escaping in general... I've escaped financially, but I haven't quite escaped mentally. As much as I hate being broken up with, it was seeing that I found it hard to get up and look for other people that made me realize I let shitty people into my life and won't kick them out because I don't think I deserve better.
Well yes of course they were victims. My mother was from the era when girls were not valued like boys, so in amongst a mix of siblings of boys and girls, she was treated poorly, abused, beaten horrifically by her parents who were totally uneducated. My father's case was different - he came from a small village in Malaysia where there wasn't a secondary school locally, so it wasn't unusual for the families to send at least the boys to the secondary school in the big city. Singapore was part of British Malaya then, it was all a British colony so his big brother was sent to Singapore for his education and when my father was old enough, the parents just sent him to the same school in Singapore. My grandfather died quite early so my grandmother grew quite close to her younger children - one of my father's younger brothers then decided to turn his mother against the two older brothers who got sent to Singapore for their education. Thus my father was accused of loads of horrible things as a teenager by his own deranged, uneducated, unreasonable mother because she was entirely manipulated by my uncle. I could go into a lot more detail but of course, both my parents suffered horrifically at their hands of their own parents and thus this Asian cycle of abuse continues one generation after another until one generation has to say, stop - I will not do this bullshit anymore. My children deserve to be loved, not abused like that.
DeleteIn the case of what I went through in the army, all I needed from my parents at that time was empathy - I needed them to recognize and acknowledge what I was doing through, offer support and encouragement and that would have been more than enough to get me through the hard times. No they were not in a position to change the horrific nature of the kind of abuse I had to go through in the army then, but to simply tell me that I'm scum who deserves to be treated like that and accept it? With parents like that, who needs enemies? Now you know why I left Singapore to get away from them. I think that's quite telling that this is the way they would cope with an abusive relationship as that's what they've been doing their whole lives. Lastly, it's okay to take your time and be single but it's not okay to let shitty people into your life and outstay their welcome. You need to have a no-tolerance policy on people like that.
What the actual fuck... This sounds like some medieval shit going on in your family. You only really see that kind of bullying on a tv show like Game of Thrones, where lives are short and marriage is about duty rather than love. And most importantly - only the strongest wins. A lot of times I'm just like, "why bother terrorizing people? How is this fun compared to chilling on a beach?" But people act irrationally when they're dealing with their own suffering and can't process it. It's almost like grieving a death but people don't usually put "suffered emotional/physical abuse" in the same category as having a parent/child/lover pass away, even though the former can have worse consequences.
DeleteI see why you left Singapore... it would have been a million times worse to rationalize how your parents treated you during army as "oh that's just how the world works." There is no way to justify that behavior. Thank god you got a scholarship to the UK and became financially independent as soon as you finished NS. I had to deal with my mom so she could pay for my university tuition after my dad died. I like to think of myself as a loyal person, but loyalty should only be reserved for good people.
Oh I'm just going out and having fun right now, nothing serious. It's not so much the rush to be in another relationship, it's just getting used to being around good people, and learning to keep out the assholes. I used to wonder why I couldn't easily go outside and just have fun and socialize, then I found a youtube video about complex PTSD. And that's when I learned I have to fix that before I can go and be happy. So thank you to the asshole who broke up with me. It's like someone being beaten half to death in a bar fight, going to the hospital ER, getting scans, and the doctors finding a tumor which was the secret cause of chronic pain.
Well, this is why I talk about the role of culture in this process. If this is the only kind of relationship you've known all your life because your Asian culture normalizes it, then you stop believing that you need to escape it, you simply accept it. And then of course, there is the loneliness aspect of it - people like my mother are desperately lonely but have no idea how to seek attention, so she antagonizes my father by picking fights with him and bullies by sister by manipulating her. Neither my father or sister like my mother, but they yield to her tactics for attention - that's incredibly messed up. Perhaps this is why I have gone out of my way to develop social skills and make them a central part of my life as I've seen how grim life is for people like that with no social skills. As for you Amanda, what is important is that you embark on a journey of learning to love yourself, build your self-confidence and get yourself to the place where you want to be - once you're happy and ready, then a relationship is the next step. I have seen people make horrible mistakes whereby they are broken and they think a relationship can fix them; or even worse, a woman who was unloved by her parents desperately wanting to be a mother, so she can be loved by her children but it didn't work out. You've got to love yourself first before anything else can follow.
DeleteYeah, social skills are so important. People talk about "soft skills" all the time like they are some intangible almost bullshit quality to list, but a better term would be "charisma." Being able to communicate effectively, make people like you, read their emotions and needs, is absolutely invaluable.
DeleteI just want to get used to not being at work and enjoying myself. I think for a long time I'd just avoid having fun and work 70-80 hours a week not because anyone asked me to, but because I lie to myself saying "this is to advanced science" instead of dealing with my personal issues. Actually right now I'm trying to see if I can just leave with a masters degree and work as a quantitative researcher or quantum computing programmer full time. It would be nice to have plenty of money and time for a life. If I'm not gonna work in something related to my PhD after graduation, and companies already want to hire me for internships given my current work experience, the PhD doesn't seem worth an extra couple years of low pay and long hours. But I'd only leave if I land a full time job.
Just to set the record straight Sandra: firstly, you failed to use the plural when referring to my several properties. I don't have one flat (singular) in London but I am a landlord who owns several flats (plural) in London, creating a multi-million pound property portfolio. I'm obviously a lot older than you so I've been working a lot longer to accumulate that kind of wealth. My current home isn't comparable to a flat, but it far more like a house given the amount of floor space it has. Not all London flats are equal, some are a lot bigger than others. If it were a house, it would be the equivalent of a 3-bedroom house (in zone 2 mind you) with a garden but the design of it is somewhat unusual and that was part of the attraction when I bought it of course. Dare I state the obvious: my flat is probably at least twice the size of yours, if not more than that given that it is spread over 3 floors (that's right, 3 floors, I get a lot of exercise walking up and down those stairs). But when it comes to talking about HDB accommodation, there is also the issue of how many are people sharing that HDB flat. Families get priorities in the HDB system and these flats are designed to pack them in rather than for single people or rich people to use as investment vehicles. Whereas in London, the housing system is far more catered towards single people and couples, rather than families with children.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever lived in a HDB flat? Urgh. The thought of looking out of the window and staring right at another block. I used to do that at my grandmother's flat in Bukit Batok and just to be that close to so many people, I remember how I could actually see a woman prepare a meal in her kitchen, like that's how little privacy they had. I remember this tiny detail - she was doing a stir fry, she added a little chilli and then hesitated before adding more chilli. That stayed with me as I don't like the idea of people watching me and I've always thought, if I had my own home, I don't like the idea of people being able to watch me do little things like contemplate how much chilli to add to my meal.
ReplyDeleteWell Liz Truss is a quitter not a fighter apparently. Shortest reign as a PM, what a shit show...
ReplyDeleteTo be honest that did surprise me, as I thought they would have to get the police to drag her out of number 10 Downing Street but she resigned on her own accord rather than shamelessly cling onto power. At least now we'll have a new PM by next week, there's no point in dragging this shit show on any longer than necessary.
DeleteNow let's see how long the new PM will last - but to answer that question, it depends on whether they pick someone credible or another fucking clown.
DeleteYes I am writing about it as we speak, akan datang.
DeleteTo be honest the new HDBs look a whole lot better than the ones from our time. They basically look like condos for the most part minus the private facilities. Most Singaporeans are okay with that as the those facilities in a condo come with a hefty maintenance fee.
ReplyDeleteThe hideous hdb flats(which my parents still live in) were mostly built from the late 1960s to early 90s.
The main thing that irks me about HDB are the rules imposed on it by the government, like minimum occupancy periods and the racial quota, which restricts the sale of flats to a member of any race that has a strong presence in that area. So basically, if you are own a flat in an area where the Chinese quota is oversubscribed, you are practically locked out from selling your flat to 75% of the market.
I hate to be a total bitch but that sounds like 'settling' talk. I don't mean to say that the HDB flats are so horrible that they are not fit for humans - no they're a practical solution to a very densely populated country with little space for housing. But my point here isn't about whether they are nice or not; my point here is the mindset of whether your average Singaporean is brainwashed into being content with their fate in life (ie. average job with 80 hours a week work schedule + a modest HDB = best case scenario) or if they say, no I'm going to do a lot better than that. I'm going to be so successful at what I do I'm gonna be a multi-millionaire who is fabulously rich without working 80 hours a week, in fact I'm gonna work 20 to 25 hours a week max and I sure as hell am not going to accept the norms of 75 hours a week.
ReplyDelete