" Check Bill " - say it with a Thai accent (เช็กบิล)

Thailand's coup was a blue sky lightning jolt - not an event many saw coming. Today, I met a Thai PhD student (let's just call him Pong, not his real name). He was elated with the military takeover back home. "Check Bill" he said, which in Thai colloquial meant payback time.

For months now, Pong had been lamenting about the Thaksin government. Allegations against Thaksin are fairly well-documented, so there is no need to discuss them here. Pong could scarcely contain his joy that the military or the military-imposed government might re-nationalise the assets sold to Temasek. Though I was never too comfortable with the deal based on what I had read, I nevertheless registered my protest that the deal was legal. If you read the news articles, Temasek is still maintaining that it has done nothing wrong.

Pong's rejoinder was that even if the deal were perfectly legal, Temasek (and by implication the Singapore government) acted in bad faith since it was well aware that the deal benefited Thaksin personally a lot more than the Thai people. I could not find a counter argument against this line of reasoning, not one that I could convince myself enough to say anyway.

Pong was very much in touch with his people back home. He told me that the coup went so successfully only because Thaksin was over-confident. For months now, the coup plotters had lured Thaksin into a sense of security by allowing the prime minister to get away with just about any thing. It was this sense of security that blinded him. If he was struck by a blue sky lightning, it was only because he saw only the sunny side of things.

Temasek now faces the possibility of being also a victim of this blue sky lightning. How could a venerable Singapore institution like Temasek commit such a strategic blunder? Not only is the investment under the cloud of uncertainty, the goodwill between Singapore and Thailand will now be put on the line.

Again, it was down to blindness. Temasek was so blindly convinced of its commercial logic that it probably chose to ignore the geo-political risk of the Shin Corp deal. Thaksin was so assured of his power that he was blind to the opposition to the deal. Both parties happily chose to look at the bright big picture.

If the assets were indeed re-nationalised, it would also be " Check Bill " for Temasek to the tune of USD1.9 billion.

A Singaporean's Experience with the NHS (and a reunion with an old friend)

The one truly amazing experience for any Singaporean who lives in the UK (besides the fact that it is 3 sing dollar to a pound!) is the National Health Service (NHS). NHS is a public funded healthcare service. As long as you are a legal resident in UK - citizen, permanent resident, student, working permit - and a valid address, you can register with your local service provider and all healthcare is free, free, free.

This was the topic of conversation when I met up with an old army friend Dennis Chan, who came over to London with his family a couple of weeks ago. To any Singaporean grown up with the notion that nothing is free, the first visit to the NHS is a thought-provoking experience.

Grace had the unfortunate experience of requiring a surgery last summer. We were checked into a single room, waited for a day, had the surgery done, stayed overnight, and walked away the next morning without paying a single penny. We left the hospital truly grateful that in our hour of medical distress, money was not an issue with the NHS.

Perhaps with his young child, Dennis was indeed making good use of the NHS. I could sense his glee when he said that his whole family was receiving free healthcare. He even went as far as to say that there was a lot of "humanity" in the NHS system, as it treated people with "dignity". Powerful sentiments for someone who settled in London for only two months.

Of course, the money has to come from somewhere, and you don't have to be an economist to know that. Tax rates in UK are indeed much higher compared to Singapore. Even though I am an economist and a pragmatic Singaporean, I do also feel that there is something noble about NHS - to provide healthcare to all as a matter of human right without regard for ability to pay. It may be economically foolish to provide any thing for free, since it would certainly lead to over-consumption and even abuse. Grace and I have also had horrible experience with the NHS as well - long wait, frustrating bureauracy, over-stretched and over-stressed staff. But whatever the difficulties, NHS has always tried to meet our demands without requiring us to pay for anything.

It is in the light of NHS that I sometimes feel that our Government lacks a certain nobility in its policies, and is often too calculating with its own citizens. In the end, noble aims are often foolish. But it is perhaps this sense of nobility that gives some meaning to life. For whatever the deficiencies of NHS, I dare say it makes the British feel better about themselves as a nation.