The Incredibility of Getting Away With It

Accountability can be so lacking, or am I just under stating the state of such things?


When there is obvious misdemeanour - or worse - several parties reckon all is done with by proclaiming a Sorry.   The structures of legislation or governance spend money on elaborate structured commissions of enquiry, but the hearings consist of pre-staged replies from representatives of the guilty.   The seriousness of the matter at hand is undermined and ignored by the parties going through the motions, without any apparent attempt to explain why it occurred in the first place or what those responsible are going to avert the causes in the future.


The unspoken costs in psychological trauma of being inflicted in an unfair manner can never be measured by compensation in subjective financial terms.   Is accountability restored in part by the shaming in public by the media?   What is more obvious is the lack of effectiveness and authority of the regulatory bodies set up in the first place to prevent, identify and punish crimes of cheating, greed, fraud and general taking advantage of less empowered individuals.     What happened to the esteem and ability of such regulatory agencies in the first place?  What is the point of funding toothless tigers in the realm of compliance agencies?


It is evident that in our contemporary society, there are powerful entities that are deemed too important to be sufficiently punished for significant misdeeds, or that their existence is deemed to be so necessary that the government of the day has to keep them afloat, no matter what their negative deeds are.   Too large to go under, too connected to be kept afloat by every means, perhaps by tax payer money.   Such is the state of things that perhaps capitalism wrought.    The truly free forces of the market, supply and demand do not apply to such institutions - they are exempted from what happens to others in the wild law of the commercial jungle.


Service levels can be so obviously inadequate, but such providers are not criticised enough for corrective action.   Entities are set up with judicial firewalls between them so that when a related parent commits the crime, the punishment can be pushed to the separately set up entity, without inflicting any responsibility and damage to the parent.


The threat of financial penalties are managed by sufficiency of provisions made and by the setting up of apparent compliance teams to project an image.   The costs of financial damage imposed by regulatory agencies are passed on to customers in terms of extra fees.   The mindset in managing misdeeds is not to correct behaviour and repent, but to avoid costs in strategic planning and on-going execution.


So we have a working system to perpetuate negative behaviour in various sectors.   Those responsible are thinking short term, as they will not be around to support a longer term and more effective change in the factors that cause such an environment.


Those responsible for such misdeeds really think they have got away with it, but the true cost has not surfaced yet.


The widening gap in accountability and the lack of rewards in doing the right thing is a malaise of our modern society.  Whether it is in the election of so called democratic governments, the modus operandi of our economic system or in the signals we encourage in our younger generations, the price for it all will come.  We shall not get away with a reduction in accountability, at whatever levels of our lives and community.


It all starts with the individual - you and me.  If my lies are deemed fake news inflicted by others, the only casualty is the casualisation of truth.    If the boundaries of accountability are pushed further and there is no wholesome penalty for our laws and policies, who is going to take seriously our framework of legislation and penalty structures?


A strong society is built on morals within not just the family, but all the entities whom we rely upon for the conduct of our day to day lives.     If accountability is undermined for such entities, what can we be more uncertain of?


Do we overlook accountability in the pursuit of more financial accumulation, the nurturing of specific powers and in the build up of ego?

Tang Court Cantonese Restaurant, Langham Hong Kong

The elegance begins with fine cutlery and silver ware.

The King prawns were substantial but the sauce was even better.

Classic pork chops in gratifying batter.

The serving chopstick pair is different from what you use yourself on your plate.

A gem of the ocean, done Cantonese style.

The classic spring rolls, only to be surpassed by the melting pork belly with crackle.

Churning For More Business

Churn, more than ever, continues to be the source of business profit and drive in contemporary society.

Turnover of paying customers to one's books means showing an increased customer portfolio, no matter how temporary this increase can be.  Inducing them to use your services or buying your products can mean offering some interim concession, creating some excitement in the joining experience or differentiating your offer from your competitors.

This can be in passing on discounts in prices or rates. It may be linking access to frequent flyer rewards, providing nicely packaged gifts or increasing credit card points. In the past, this was reinforced by hiring a team of effective communicators in person or in adverts to push the package. It is sad these days that many on line offers involve interacting with just software - something is lost in this process but business costs are reduced and a new rising generation of potential customers may prefer it this way.

In having a high churn, shareholders and business owners are pleased to receive the eventual outcome, that is profit margin multiplied by the number of transactions. What simple common sense this can be. What has been neglected inevitably is that once a customer opts in, the level of engagement and service from the business invariably declines.

Once you lock in with an insurance policy, wealth management product or gym membership, do you feel increasingly neglected?   However, if a customer actively changes providers for utilities, telecommunications and subscription services, the incumbents may chase you intensely like forsaken lovers with emerging inducements you were not told of before.

It is all a game as old as human history. Commerce used to make profits on a single transaction, but today's financial markets thrive on benefiting sellers with trailing commissions as if they possessed imtellectual property.  Hence we are not surprised that in unethical cases, fees are still charged long after the initial primary transaction.

Churn can be seen in the frenetic reporting by media of even small changes in prices, whether of currency, options or man made instruments. Churn is the vitality of gambling, churn can be creating value out of nothing at all. Churn thrives on sentiment, speculation and movement. Churn is betting on change and making money out of it. The fast paced and more responsive internet enables the better managing of faster and larger transaction universes. The day trader is only a simple example of the utilisation of churn, which underlies all the financial centres of this world.

To the ordinary individual, better managing churn is the key to better purchasing decisions. The seller need not have a monopoly on making a buck out of churning. It is all a game beyond haggling and bargaining. Understand why sellers like churning.

#yongkevthoughts

Human Addiction

If they are not organically grown, strawberries are said to carry the most residue of pesticides from commercial growing of vegetables and fruits.

Just reflect on smart devices and their software, looking captivating as well with lures and experiences of convenience, interconnectedness and flexibility. What residues of negative connatations and real risks do these gadgets have?

1. Escalating personal addictiveness. How long does it take to check your smart phone after waking up each day?

2. Allowing others to manipulate and control our desires - and we are not even aware of it. Fake news or a source we trust?

3. Feeling pleasure in building up our dependency on others. There is an App for almost everything, especially for things we did not even think we required.

4. Emphasising unplaced trust. Who reads all the terms and conditions, written in a most unpalatable way?

5. Enhancing runaway loss of privacy. Did you notice how many parties want to know your present location?

6. Submitting to structures much larger than nations and governments. 

7. Increasing the risks of putting all the eggs in one basket. The Cloud, the Cloud!

8. Nurturing the Empire of Self-obsession. The Me culture is evident in most Apps.

To unplug is comparable to abstaining from our fav foods. Previous generations were hooked on television, white goods, motor cars and other inventions. So what is new?

The immediate casualty for an individual in this contemporary period is losing the balance in choices amongst screen time, embracing the outdoors and enhancing physical activity. There are pyschological and physiological benefits in putting away the smart screens for longer periods - and yet there are withdrawal symptoms, pleasure to give up from persuasive tech and an isolation from communication issues to deal with.

Our human brains are increasingly engineered to sync with such smart machines to such an extent each of us undergo feelings of real loss in not constantly interacting with them. We feel better when we get likes. We instinctively want to get biofeedback from our exercises - and this facet of behavioural pyschology has been utilised to higher levels of inducing addiction in each of us. We want to instinctively get rewards on a constant basis - the smart machines and Apps know this very well.

The human race is essentially a social animal - and yet so called smart tech escalates isolation, over self importance and encourages social awkwardness. The art of an enjoyable conversation is lost, replaced by the thrills of software graphics and the ability to do things silently without the need to verbalise or spell - think of Emojis.

Previous inventions freed up time to enable gathetrings of the family or tribe.
Smart machines make us so obsessed we run out of time to eat properly or make time to meet up - after all the message has been delivered to other individuals by a click.

We can be observed to be like guinea pigs riding mini wheels to obtain constant bursts of little cubes of food. The volume of content of so many social media vehicles are endless - not that most have any meaningful value. 

The stakes in today's games are higher than ever, due to the startling degrees of lacking transparency, hidden access to your data and the extreme profiling of individuals. Behind it all is business, the need to make profits and to sell you something - that has never changed!

In summary, the actual ability of smart machines, social media moves and Apps software to change your behaviour is the most significant. Most of us do not even realise this is happening to each of us.

Rare is the person who can utilise the largest opportunities to take advantage of this development.

#yongkevthoughts

Politics, Elections, Royalty and Modifications

Post World War 2, a rising tide of nationalism, the strengthening of communism and the end of colonialism witnessed an age of pro-independence political leaders. This was especially pronounced across Africa and Asia.

Roll forward about sixty to seventy years.

How many nations are still ruled by the same political party that fought for independence at the outset? Singapore comes foremost to mind. In contrast, the high level of volatility in the political landscape of Europe, the primary colonisers for a few centuries pre World War 2, has since witnessed a wide spectrum of political players with many different hues.

So called democracies encourage change, with parties playing off each other every few years. Historically this can lead to dictatorships, autocracy, kleptocracy, military rule and other arrangements which are a far cry from the idealistic Greek idea of democracy.

Even the Roman Republic came into aurocratic rule for a long time before the Empire collapsed and after the powers of checks and balances like in the Senate were decimated.

The implications of having too much a passion on exercising freedoms of expression in the past century can be a two edged sword. We have observed what has happened in the United States of America, which remains a highly divisive society, has gun use issues, has wealth concentrated in a few rather than the many and which is said to have been subject to excesses of interference in the electoral process. 

In comparison, for some other countries, the cry to be heard for socio-political and economic justice is often ignored and suppressed - the yearning for basic freedoms here remains unfulfilled.

The different shades of Isms in categories of government rule currently seem to be skewing towards conservative values, right wing thinking and less openness in interacting with the outside world. Globalisation has had a kick in the butt when ordinary folks lose their jobs, manufacture so little and suffer a decline in their quality of life - especially when their political leaders are not innovative enough to change economic drivers. Therefore new labels like populism now compete with long standing systems like socialism, modified democracy, capitalism and political correctness.

Yet the strong hold of royalty continues in societies as diverse as the UK, Thailand, Japan and Brunei, providing many benefits of political stability as it may draw criticism.

There are only currently six nations which hold the communist label. They are Laos, Albania, Cuba, Vietnam, China and North Korea. The progressive ones emphasise on improving the day to day wealth of their citizens whilst expecting loyalty to party.

The integration of religious faith amd political control continues to happen across the Middle East. This is remniscient of history in the European Middle Ages before the collapse of feudal thought and practices.

Malaysians used to politically associate the month of May mainly with post election racial riots in 1969. Today for the majority, there is a glow in their hearts after an astounding post election outcome 49 years later on May 9. The party that won independence from the British and had ruled thereafter was over whelmingly rejected by voters without violence and after a much maligned long term performance by the incumbent Government. Change can be possible in a positive way.

#yongkevthoughts