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The Lucky Hamster ritual worked again, as Mr. Ham inspired United to a Community Shield comeback after being two goals down in the first half, following a lot of squeezing. His reward was half a french fry, a bargain I must say. To commemorate this year's National Day, I would like to comment on two extracts from our national newspaper. First up is an ST Forum letter, "The public transport quandary", in which the author details four possible ways to run Singapore's public transport system. Bus & Us First up is the pure free-market system, derided as a "false silver bullet", due to the congestion if entrepreneurs were allowed to select the most profitable routes and best times, and the problems with preventing opportunists without licenses from joining in. Ignoring the suspicion that licenses appear to imply more a controlled than truly pure free market, it is possible to imagine that allowing supplementary private bus services during rush hours might actually benefit commuters, while not contributing overmuch to congestion - heck, while we're in the realm of theorycraft, this might even reduce congestion if some are persuaded by less crowded buses to switch from cars/cabs - a moderately filled bus with fifty souls on board has the footprint of maybe three cars containing perhaps five, after all. Interestingly, our (then) Minister of Transport mentioned back in 2008 that "...introducing some form of competition, or even just the real threat of competition, is an effective way to keep bus operations efficient and raise service standards", and also that "... our second broad strategy is to gradually open up our basic bus service sector for more competition ...there are limited economies of scale for bus operations above a fleet size of 500 buses. Hence, our current bus industry of about 3,700 buses could potentially support more than the current two operators."  Coming to a bus-stop near you (Source: flickr.com) However, a bit more searching suggests that private bus operators are largely interested in cashing in on prime routes. Again, is that a bad thing? Perhaps not for commuters, but probably for SBS, if it has to continue running unprofitable services. Alright then. Next up is the case of a nationalized public transport monopoly, which arguably is close to what's going on in reality (without the nationalized bit, since there is no choice between the operators on many routes). The argument against this is that low fares are essentially a transfer payment from taxpayers, and a "bottomless demand" will be created. The letter writer is right about the transfer part, of course, but his prediction about demand appears somewhat overboard. I believe the inelasticity goes both ways, i.e. I won't be taking an additional bus ride to school just because it's at half price! The third view happens to mirror our former Transport Minister's plan (as quoted above) nearly verbatim. The sentence following it is more challenging, but I believe what it basically says is that the minister was wrong when his doubtless comprehensive research indicated that economies of scale are exhausted at a fraction of total required capacity. Finally, we come to the having two integrated MRT-bus operators with "seamless cross-platform travel" and "cross-subsidy mechanisms" option (apparently, this and other one-time Government subsidies do not come from tax money, unlike when making a case against a nationalized monopoly). No token argument against it is even attempted. It also happens to be the status quo. The writer does however mention that the operators must use market benchmarks to produce a fair return on equity, and provide a higher standard of living for their employees. Bottomline: the current system is good, and fare increases should be accepted, so that the bus drivers continue to be paid a decent wage and shareholders a competitive dividend. Fair enough for the drivers (or captains, as they have been branded), but this line of reasoning seems, uncomfortably, to imply that it is basically a price-setting monopoly after all. The main distinction appears to be that we are hoping to trade some of the millions in profit for better efficiency, by incentivizing management. But what will the head honchos aim for? First, bear in mind that the PTC's fare review formula is based on average prices and wages, which are outside the transport operators' control, and can thus be considered a constant factor and ignored. Then, one might suspect that their bonus remuneration would be largely based on (shareholder) profits, as is standard with publicly-traded corporations. But demand being extremely inelastic, the most straightforward and reliable way to boost profits would be to skimp on service as much as possible and pack commuters like sardines; there is no natural motivation to fix this - what are the customers going to do, walk? A more pertinent question follows: who are these shareholders who are owed a good market-rate return anyway? As it turns out, Temasek Holdings has a 54% stake in SMRT, while ComfortDelGro has a 75% stake in SBS. Note that the single largest shareholder in ComfortDelGro is the Singapore Labour Foundation, whose cool Flash-only website proclaims that it is a statutory board of the Ministry of Manpower. [N.B. Where have we seen this before?] So, going through it one last time, substituting "shareholder" where appropriate for clarity: The government-controlled public transport operators have to raise fares to ensure a healthy return for the government, thereby bolstering the government's sterling reputation for investment acumen. It all makes sense when put this way. My Fair Lady The second discussion will be on "Smart guys win fair ladies", a column by Ms Lee Wei Ling, the director of the National Neuroscience Institute. While I have disagreed with her published opinion at least once, a few years back, I have to state that I generally enjoy reading (and mostly agreeing with) her articles, and hope that my tendency to take an opposing stand does not detract from this fact. But the season to doubt has come again. This time, Ms Lee, not believing that her Singaporean sisters are as materialistic as Dr Norman Li's recent research suggests (previously already covered in the inaugural mr.ham show), surveyed a hundred-odd people she knew (presumably at her institute), and came up with the conclusion that local men and women both rated intelligence as the most important feature in a spouse. One of my eyebrows twitched, and after some half-hearted resistance, both went up, and my eyeballs rolled reflexively. I suppose she sincerely believes that. It gets better: while, being ever conscientious, she cites Dr Li's and a Dr Fisman's findings that men, at least, put beauty atop their list (being the more honest/direct/naive gender), the same result that countless studies (where the guys don't have their significant others breathing down their neck) have confirmed, she gives no indication of suspecting the validity of her rather unconventional feedback. Instead, after admitting that her survey is likely less sophisticated than the others she referenced, she states that it is still representative of Singaporeans (especially if assuming we are all institutionalized, I guess), and without missing a beat suggests that it is down to former PM/MM Lee's (who so happens to be her dad) continual pushing of well-educated men to marry well-educated women finally having an effect. I was prepared for something like that, but still fell straight off my chair. She does appear to at least get part of the point when she mentions that "it is unusual for a woman to willingly marry a man less intelligent than she is" towards the end, though. The point is this: intelligence is a condition to be satisfied - once a prospective partner is smart enough, additional smarts do not by themselves count for much, and people (men especially) do not go out looking for mental capacity for its own sake. Lest I be accused of throwing out unproven assertions, I offer as the sketch of a proof the near-complete absence of female admirers at just about every event focused on raw intelligence, including but not limited to: chess tournaments, mathematical Olympiads, scientific conferences, Mensa gatherings and engineering courses. The contrast with pop/rock concerts, sports meets and the bar scene, which are generally not known for any particularly high concentration of brainpower, is particularly stark. Seen from yet another angle, intelligence is good to have, of course, but when push comes to shove, one suspects that it's not quite at the top of the pile. This could be described as the Darcy Blind Spot, after Austen's romantic hero - he was suave, smart and sensitive, yes. But underneath all that, he was superbly rich. Yes, Elizabeth Bennet might not have married Darcy were he merely a wealthy idiot, but note that men who had inherited rather less money would most probably have been invisible to her from the start, whatever their character. More data, you say? Well, OkCupid (an online dating site) maintains a very readable blog containing original research on their millions of active users, and if that's not representative, I don't know what is. In addition, they draw observations based on the actual behaviour of users, not their stated preferences, which can only add to the accuracy - people are sometimes self-deluding, after all. Behold, direct data on the extremely consistent relationship between male income and female interest:  The data don't lie (Source: blog.okcupid.com) They put it very pithily indeed: "If you're a young guy and don't make much money, cool. If you're 23 or older and don't make much money, go die in a fire." It could be spun that smart guys often earn more, so this does not exactly disprove the intelligence hypothesis, but it should at least raise the issue of which way the correlation actually goes. Research on romance novels listed on Amazon.com hints at the cash - 415 millionaires, 286 billionaires and 263 sheiks played the part of hero and mate in these titles. One might expect, say, (non-millionaire) accountants to be at least mildly in demand, if intelligence were the main trait desired; the average accountant shouldn't be too much less clever than the average millionaire, after all. One accountant protagonist was found, in a 1983 book. [N.B. While doctors were featured more, they probably won't be as rich as popular perception has it] Even being handsome as a fallback isn't easy, either, with women rating 80% of men as below average in the looks department (while the men hit closer to 50%, demonstrating once again their superior spatial skills). This at least is salvageable, with one experiment confirming that it is possible for a guy originally rated a 3.5/10 physically to suddenly rise to an 8 after his considerable salary was revealed. Short guys are still mostly out of luck, sadly, with even doctor/best-selling author/champion skier/venture capitalist status insufficient to give them an edge over taller fellas. The researcher asked her woman subjects what would make them choose the shortest man (about 1.5m in height) - they replied that the others would have to be murderers or child molesters. Becoming pretty almost seems easy in comparism! Mr. Ham has indicated that he will be carrying on with the issue when his talkshow resumes, so I'll leave it at this. Next: And There Were Four
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