Picking up a new language

I am trying to pick up a new language, and its not your usual French/German/Bahasa Indonesia/Malay/Jap.

It is Math... or to be more specific, Mathematical Econs.

I think a year ago, or even just at the start of this yr (when I was looking at the module list), I would have not considered to learn much more math at all. Afterall Maths has always been sort of an necessary evil for me ever since secondary school days, right into JC - Never mind that I have been a part time A Maths tutor for these few years (Which I am quite grateful for in keeping my Math level to at least the O level standard).

So when I first decided to brush up my math, it was more of a necessary evil reason as well. A quick look at the current economics publications will indicate that any serious study of economics will definitely require a much higher level of math than my current level. In fact, it is the working language of economics.

Now I am halfway into Chiang's Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics (I got a really old book printed 1984, its older than me!), and guess what, it is quite enjoyable. It's just a preliminary read though, so I think I only actually understood 10-20% of what I read. A lot of the seemingly circular mathematical logics and proofs, as well as the mathematical grammar does go over my head very often.

Just bought a copy of Varian's Microeconomic Analysis for interest (haha and hopefully its going to be EC4101 text so that I don't need to buy another text), but its math is currently way above my level, so I think its only more accessible only after I master the Mathematical econs. It is interesting how this Microeconomic Analysis contrasts with his 'baby' text, "Intermediate Microeconomics" in the way it is written. The latter's arguments are almost all in words, with minimal math except simple algebra, and its elder brother's arguments are almost all in math. Consequently, the 'baby' text is much thicker than the 'adult' text. His sense of humour pervades throughout the both texts though.

A further few thoughts on this, the relative lack of mathematical foundation in NUS econs' compulsory curriculum does seem a bit worrying to me. I find that most other universities usually have at least one or two compulsory mathematical modules in their econs programme to cover all these basic tools needed for economic analysis. But in NUS's case, there is none, which means most likely a B.A (non honours) econs grad is not likely to be economic literature literate... which doesn't seem to be good... Furthermore, the optional Mathematical Econs I, II (There is none for the coming Acad yr), III are offered irregularly, with small classes(and enrollment as well, haha after all most people come to FASS to avoid sci and math).

Wish me luck on this... haha...

On the NETS fee hike

Nets, or Network for Electronic Transfers, is raising its transaction fees for retailers in three batches starting July 1 - the timing of which has also come under fire because it coincides with the 2 per cent goods and services tax hike.

Now, isn't this smart? Raise the fees together with the GST increase and the resulting increase in prices can be 'hidden' or explained away as: its due to the GST! It's due to retail merchants profiteering on the GST!

Seriously, NETS is just another profiteering monopolist profiteering from the GST hike. And we are not talking about a small increase here, it is an up to 300% increase!

The rates will go up from the current 0.35 and 0.55 per cent of purchases to between 1.5 per cent and 1.9 per cent - this represents an up to three-fold increase in the amount merchants will have to pay for each transaction.

And in the land of competition of Singapore, where commercial viability is oft cited as justification of government, GLCs, private businesses, we see it in this issue again:

Chief executive officer Poh Mui Hoon said the system will be squeezed out of the market if it does not raise its rates: 'It is a tough but commercial decision that we have to make. We haven't raised rates for 22 years, it has to be done.'

But excuse me?! NETS is not charging a flat fee in the first place, but instead it is a percentage fee. We have always heard that companies cutting costs, cutting prices to maintain competitiveness and commercial viability, and calls for workers to accept lower wages to ensure our competitiveness with the cheaper China/India/SEA workers. But in the case of NETS it is a monopoly RAISING rates to prevent it being SQUEEZED out of the market???

What a way to turn competitiveness (This term was actually used in zaobao as justification for the hike) and commercial viability on its head.

And since they talk about the competition being strong, let's look at who is behind NETS and who are their competitors.

Nets, which is owned by DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank...

Banks, she said, have been aggressively promoting and issuing debit cards because they get more money each time these cards are used. Each transaction with a debit or credit card earns the bank between 1.15 and 1.69 per cent of the purchase price.

Now now, it seems that their 'competitors' are actually themselves, as the 3 major banks in singapore most probably have the largest debit/credit card market share here. Except in the case of debit/credit card, the international card company(VISA/Mastercard etc) takes a share of the fee.

Compare the NETS after hike rates of "between 1.5 per cent and 1.9 per cent" to the 1.15-1.69 percent of debit/credit cards... Now we really see what this competiveness/commercial 'viability' really means.

After this hike, NETS would most probably be just as expensive to use as credit/debit cards, and if this is the case, I see no point in using NETS anymore. NETS does not offer the consumer any reward points/discounts, it does a direct debit the moment the transaction takes place (as opposed to debit cards where the money is deducted a few days after), it has a lower charging limit (of $2000, if I remember correctly), and now it is more expensive.

So much for a cashless society, and not to mention the biggest group of people that will be ripped off are those older people who have no knowledge/access to debit/credit cards.

I do hope CASE's complaint does go through, but given the Singaporean system I am not optimistic.

Source: Case slams Nets fee hike as a 'great disservice'

Difficult exam papers and the absurdity of it

Before my Maths Tutee took her Math exams, she was remarking to me that she was most likely going to fail the paper because it was rumored to be set at a very difficult level. And the reason for the difficult paper? It was to show other schools that her school has a high math standard.

And so she failed it terribly. Looking at her test paper, I could see why, for it was a really difficult paper. Needless to say, I think most of the other students in the school would have done disastrously for it as well(the school is a neighbourhood school)

But just what purposes are exam papers meant to serve? To wayang to other schools that they have a high standard for maths(when in actual fact their students are not even halfway there)? I think this is just absurd. Even if this was not the aim of the paper setter, I don't see the reason why they would need to set difficult papers. But sadly, I think this is the trend of the Singaporean education system: nevermind that the students can't really understand or handle the material, as long as we give them questions that are much more difficult than the O levels to 'practice', they will do well at O levels.

In my opinion, exam papers are meant to serve as 1) Practice/trial runs for the actual O level exams. 2) Evaluation and feedback about the student's grasp of the material 3) Training of exam taking skills like time management. Thus a good paper should be able to mirror the actual exam standards, and also be able to sort out the students' ability in the subject (ie differenciate those who are very poor, poor, average, above average, good, outstanding, in terms of marks). This means a balanced mix of very easy to difficult questions should be included.

This brings to mind my days at HCJC where most of the college was on this difficult papers system, where only a very small handful could get As and Bs for the internal exams while most struggled to pass. This, mind you, is in a top end college where if you threw a stone during A level results annoucement, there's a 50% chance that you will hit someone with 4As. Fortunately I was mostly not under this system as under the Humanities programme my tutors adopted a WYSIWYG(in line with A levels standard, albeit slightly harder, with none of those skewed bell curves of the rest of college).

The biggest victims of all these difficult papers in the end are going to be the students, especially the weaker to average ones. In our academic, grade focused education culture, failing paper after paper (not due to laziness/inability of students) is a great discouragement and source of stress. For those who see grades as an indicator of self worth(or have great pressure from parents to do well) a low self esteem, depression, high stress levels are all likely to result. On the other end of the spectrum, some just give up on their studies, for afterall there's no visible results/improvements from putting in the effort to study anyway, and everyone's scoring so badly (whether they studied or not).

Singapore 90 days T-Bill auction yields from 2006

Here's something I did for fun since I was bored and was looking at renewing my T-bills:

Interest rates have dropped sharply across the board in Singapore since March, and all the savings accounts offering higher interest rates (like Stan Chart, Maybank) have lowered their rates. The same goes for many fixed deposits.

Nevertheless, T-bills still offer decent rates for small amounts (lowest denominations is 1k), and the rates is still much better than most Fixed deposits (Unless you happen to have large sums like above 50k and 'threaten' to deposit your money elsewhere) . Stan Chart's Esaver (1.5%) is still excellent given its no conditions on withdrawals, and Maybank should be similar too, although I do not know the exact rate.

However, the biggest drawback to T-bills is the hassle of having to go on a Friday and wait at the bank(and its a long wait, as it is the same queue as those buying investment products). The Phillips electronic T-bill portal is more convenient, but at the cost of losing around 0.05% due to the spread.

Blogger seems okay now

Now this is weird, it seems that the blogger interface is okay on my desktop after i logged in using my laptop.....

Some problems with blogger

Thought of posting something recently (after all its the holidays), but it seems that there is some problem with my desktop's browsers that causes the edit/post screen to be totally screwed up. It seems fine on other computers though. I wonder what is the problem.