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Monday, Nov 16, 2020 - 21:59 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Next Episode

There's been plenty of action this past week, much of which has not gained much representation in the mainstream media, and one might begin with public health; first off, it seems that the announcement of a successful vaccine by Pfizer (that said, estimated from 94 positive cases) had been deliberately withheld till after the election, as not to help GEOTUS, which I suppose is only to be expected when a President actually takes on Big Pharma for real (instead of optimizing for good public image, whilst doing nothing of note in actuality). A recent editorial in JAMA might be read in light of this "politicization"; the author refers to "several published rigorous studies" in arguing that HCQ has a lack of efficacy in treating COVID-19, with a single citation (the NEJM paper) referenced in support of it being ineffective in early use too. Readers might consider our previous commentary on the subject, to determine for themselves as to what perspectives were entirely ignored.

Closer to home, Singapore's been pressing heavily for travel bubbles to be formed with Taiwan and other nearby countries, if to very mixed success, with a deal with Hong Kong for example allowing their travellers to enter without additional testing, while mandating an extra test for ours - which might say something about mutual trust. Anyhow, our Prime Minister's been pretty busy amidst all the excitement, first with a slightly-unseemly rush to congratulate the supposed new President-elect (who might have been in a tawdry hurry to secure acknowledgement too), while pleading for America's continued presence in the region. Internally, however, he's apparently also been dropping hints that he might be staying on as PM for the foreseeable future... which is fairly sensible, actually, given how dangerous this period is, as explained some months back. The last thing you want in such interesting times is a mass of potential successors backstabbing each other for the position, and while I've clearly never been a huge fan of the ruling party from all my previous writings, I would still hope that they pull together and present a united front for now. Otherwise, in the wise words of the late, great, Sgt. Muthu, "You die, I die, everybody die!"


Only funeral parlour huat!
(Source: tenor.com)


I can make no apologies for previous geopolitical analysis on this blog, by the way, from how much of it is being concurred with by our resident doyens of whatever persuasion. Mahbubani has, for instance, recounted LKY's admiration for Nixon and distaste for Carter in a State's Times opinion piece earlier this month (a fact utilized in previous analyses), though I'd respectfully disagree with his expectation that "Biden will bring back the civility and generosity that the American spirit is associated with", about which more next time. Bilahari Kausikan, for his part, has been making waves with his provocative suggestion that ASEAN might have to expel Cambodia and Laos for being overly aligned with... a particular Asian giant - recall, exactly the headache that had been pointed out here last October. Honestly, it's all been going as expected. That said, our sudden discontinuation of the thousand-dollar note, ostensibly to reduce money laundering risk, will probably not have the effect the administration likely hopes it will have, but we'll defer the explanation for that for now.

The latest big news has been on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which has been lauded as a huge deal in some quarters, and rather less by others, who for example have noted that it eliminates tariffs mainly for goods that are already duty-free under existing trade agreements, while having little impact on cross-border services - put in other words, it rubber-stamps the status quo. Some have moreover noted that the RCEP offers little protection for smaller members against the whims of larger ones, with the ongoing trade spat between Australia and China held up as an example. The deeper issue would however be that all RCEP participants, by and large, desire to run current account surpluses, i.e. to not be a net importer and accumulate aggregate debt, which is the role that America has played for past decades (and are now tiring of)

We will see if China is willing to take over as benefactor and start doling out implicit bribes to inherit a chunk of the world order, but I'd frankly be shocked if Beijing's not chomping at the bit to export their way out of financial disaster here, all the more given how longer-term demographics are beginning to turn against them. This, note, is probably why India's not involved, because they understood that allowing foreign goods to flood domestic markets would displace their own industries, which was why the TPP got so much hate from both sides of the political aisle, back in 2016. Well, from how the PM's stated that he would have to "work hard to persuade our citizens that the RCEP will benefit them", I'd gather that the benefits might perhaps not be as clear-cut as it's been sold in the local propaganda broadsheet, and a new four-letter invective could be added to the Singlish lexicon alongside CECA in the future.


He Said, She Said

"It's not the people who vote that count.
It's the people who count the votes."

- attributed to Stalin


Returning to the contested U.S. elections, the only thing that's clear is that it has only become more muddled over the past week or so, despite the FAKE NEWS attempting to posture that it's done and decided. One wouldn't hear, for instance, that precedent has been set that a state Secretary - and court - does not have statutory authority to override election law, a power that belongs solely to the legislature, which in theory opens a route to contest (mail-in) votes that were allowed through such means; nor that the Attorney-General has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue substantial allegations of irregularities, that the Federal Elections Commission chair believes that there's evidence of voter fraud (echoed by GEOTUS's legal team), that an Air Force general has sounded out on crooked voting machines, or that the USPS whistleblower (one of many hundreds who filed sworn affidavits) who was said by WaPo to have recanted his allegations, had done nothing of the sort. It's a War of Information out there, folks, and everyone's invited!

One fact that I hope beyond dispute, is that for the world's foremost beacon of democracy, America's election system has been a complete mess. Far less-developed and similarly densely-populated nations have managed to administer nationwide balloting with a minimum of fuss and controversy, as opposed to the weird happenings in many of the battleground states. Trouble is, of course, that a lot of the allegations are essentially one person's (or group's) word against another - were poll watchers ejected where contests were especially close, or was it justified due to legal admission limits? Did workers illegally alter invalid ballots, or is that allowed? Were some mail-in ballots and flash drives selectively withheld or misplaced, or was it all a honest mistake? And above all, why has there been an agreement between the parties to not audit elections, for 35 years?!

Indubitably, it's nearly impossible to be confident about most of the above accusations, given how far apart the stories being spun by both sides have been. One could, definitely, assert that the insistence on allowing mail-in votes to arrive days after Election Day proper was to allow for the ballots of those who hadn't voted to be harvested (a dodge dating back to Lincoln, mind), but this would seem comparatively hard to conclusively prove. It is, therefore, probably more respectable to scrutinize the reported figures instead, and for the next instalment, we'll investigate what amateur data scientists from around the globe have had to say about the numbers.

[To be continued...]



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