Even The Lucky Country can't balance its budget

As an American, some aspects of Australia's economic situation certainly fill me with envy. Low unemployment, abundant resources to exploit, and great prospects for growth, even with a superior social benefits program. You would think that, under such circumstances, balancing the federal government's budget would be a snap. You would be wrong.

The story is passing strange. Evidently BOTH the Labor-Green government and the opposition Coalition believe, and have made a priority, that a budget surplus is the way to demonstrate to the voters that they are being fiscally responsible. Labor has been saying consistently, until last night, that they would deliver a federal budget surplus even earlier than promised.

Evidently October's revenue projections finally forced the government to throw in the towel on the surplus. Last night, I watched in astonishment as a news anchor raked the Finance Minister over the coals on this policy backflip. (The other Americans watching with me said, "Wow, wish our US media would hold people's feet to the fire like that!") And this morning, the Opposition said they weren't sure that they would continue having a surplus as part of their platform, either. So there may not be a huge political penalty for the backflip--just a concession to changing circumstances.

News stories since I've been in Oz have presaged this development. Deep cuts in research and defense have been among the sacrifices to the surplus god. Being in research, and having considerable sympathy for defense, I've found this somewhat alarming. And yet, simultaneously, government program after government program was announced providing EVEN MORE social benefits: supplemental pay for day care workers; national disability insurance; relief for climbing energy bills. Each one cost billions. Evidently these were EVEN MORE important than the surplus!

Now here's something I really don't understand. One would think that Labor folks would be Keynesians. You know the mantra: government deficit spending stimulates the economy, inflationary effects are absorbed by growth, and money grows on trees. So why were these left-leaning folks EVER touting a surplus? 

Someone will explain it to me in terms of the unique Australian psyche. Until then, it'll just remain a mystery.

Now, having had some fun at Aussies' expense, I will praise them. In Australian politics, both the government and the opposition CARE about fiscal responsibility. They give it PRIORITY. They COMMIT to fiscal responsibility, even when they sometimes have to modify their stance in the face of economic changes.

Oh, the envy from this American. In the US, it took the grass-roots Tea Party movement to force even ONE of the two parties to address fiscal irresponsibility, and that party does so with EXTREME reluctance. Fiscal responsibility is FAR, FAR below the big priority, which is RE-ELECTION: buying votes with social programs (for the Democrats) and avoiding backlash from the AARP (for the Republicans).  

You rock, Australia.

[And on a silly note: did you know that Australia has its own TEA party? Clearly its name is not a reference to that event in Boston Harbor in the 1770s. No, here TEA stands for "Taxed Enough Already." You gotta love it.]

Entrepreneurship in Oz: missing in action

I've been working on a space project here at the University of New South Wales. It's very cool: the satellite would carry a huge radar which would monitor Australia's natural resources. Moisture in soils, growth of trees, damage caused by fires and flooding--all would be measured more often and more accurately by this unique system. We are doing a very preliminary design, but with a few years of dedicated effort, it could be ready to fly.

Sadly, the students keep asking me: "Where can I do such projects after I graduate?" You see, Australia has no aerospace industry. Many of Australia's universities have programs in aerospace engineering, which includes both the "air" and "space" systems. But  no companies here build any. Students come to me to ask what's available in the US. Answer: lots. It's a little tricky if you're not a US citizen, because a lot of US aerospace work is defense-related, but there are many, many high-tech opportunities. One recent PhD here found a cutting-edge job, following my suggestion, with a major heavy equipment manufacturer in the US. That company wants to automate its huge vehicles; the PhD is an expert in controlling vehicles without drivers.

To give these bright students a future in Australia, one would like to see some small companies starting up in the space business. Many of us feel that an Australian space industry wouldn't just be an indulgence for the sake of coolness--rather, it could be the centerpiece of a new high-tech economy. Because right now, the Australian economy is anything but high-tech: it's mining, agriculture and tourism.

I've written an article describing how a space industry, composed primarily of small businesses, would benefit Australia, particularly in increasing ties with Asia. The article is currently with the editor of a major Australian news organization; we'll see how that goes. I'll post a link if it's published, and I'll post the article if it's not. Government seed funding of a few small companies making space hardware, software and even complete small spacecraft would pay off many times.

Unfortunately, starting small companies here is not like starting them in Silicon Valley. The laws, the bureaucracy, and even the social construct get in the way. One Australian, a CEO of a successful US startup, gave this excellent summary of the problems facing high-tech startups in Oz. It's a 7-minute video well worth watching.

Like that CEO did 12 years ago, a new Aussie startup venture is leaving the country for Silicon Valley . And it's more than just the lack of venture capital: the social construct here disparages success, considering it  "reaching too high". They call it the "tall poppy syndrome" and every Aussie I've talked to about it agrees that it's real.

Let me be clear, too, that Australia does not lack talent. Australia is a world leader in astronomy, for example, including many skills that could help bootstrap a space business. Some Aussie organizations are also doing cutting-edge data processing of very large datasets--which will become ever more important around the world.

Yet, ironically, there is another social problem that I have been told about repeatedly: students simply can't visualize what a high-tech career would even look like. University professors are paid less than plumbers, and are less respected in Aussie society. Young people don't have a vision that motivates them to pursue careers in technology.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a whole series of recent articles about the obstacles to entrepreneurship, even one about tall poppies . I hope that things change quickly, before the bright students with whom I work today decide they have to leave too, and the next generation all becomes plumbers.

The Sydney Islamic riot--two days after

What are the personal reactions I have encountered since the riot?

1. Women in headscarves, normally a very common sight in Sydney's CBD and on the campus of the University of New South Wales, were nearly absent.

2. A university professor: "What were they hoping to accomplish? It seems so senseless."

3. A postdoctoral scholar: "Surely it is only a small minority that behaves this way."

I haven't yet had a chance to talk to my neighbors about it.

Two newspaper editorials to add to those quoted before: one decrying the exploitation of Australian multiculturalism for violent ends, and the other decrying American blindness (and by extension Australian blindness) about the degree of extremism rampant in the Muslim world.

The Sydney Islamic riot

Yesterday, Islamic protesters rioted in Sydney's Central Business District, injuring six police officers. The riot was in conjunction with ongoing protests in the Arab world, supposedly over a dubbed video that defames the prophet Muhammad, blessings be upon him. One of the more memorable photos shows a young boy, certainly less than 4 years old, holding up a nicely pre-printed sign that said, "Behead those who insult the Prophet." I'm certain that that accurately reflected the boy's inner feelings.

Today, the politicians' reactions were as expected: pathetic. The rioters "damaged Australia's multicultural reputation." Their actions were "unacceptable." I am sure that will give the ringleaders pause before they try it again!

One opinion piece hit on an important point: the riot will certainly provide grist for the racism acknowledged to be a strong force in Australian society. And indeed, when I drove around the CBD today, I saw only one headscarf. They are usually ubiquitous. The actions of a few have spread fear to many--Muslims and non-Muslims as well. It appears that a riot is as effective as an act of terror in achieving that.

A couple of years ago in France, there were riots in some of the Muslim communities outside of Paris, supposedly because Muslims are marginalized in French society. One can be sympathetic. But yesterday's riot was in AUSTRALIA, people. The lives of Australian Muslims can only be described as idyllic. Muslims have no problem getting jobs here; there is certainly less prejudice against them than against aborigines (the Cronulla riot of a few years ago notwithstanding). They do have a TV show here called, "Are We Dumb, Drunk and Racist?" But the show makes it clear that, while it's not that hard to find the racists, they really are a minority.

Now, there is something more important beneath the surface. As noted, the riot coincided with worldwide protests against a film, and with the murder of a US Ambassador in Libya (for which those same protests were a diversion.) But was this Sydney riot really spontaneous? A video of the riot shot from overhead  shows something very interesting: the bottle-throwers are several rows of people behind the front lines. They are actually pushing people in front of them to force contact with the police line, then are throwing their weapons. They not only incited the riot, they used a human shield, a familiar tactic in the Middle East. The video is clear enough to show the bottles flying from behind the human shield. And where did those glass bottles come from? The instigators brought the bottles with them, of course. They did not go to the local convenience stores, buy bottles of Bundaberg ginger beer, drink it, and then start a riot. THEY CAME INTENDING TO DO VIOLENCE.

The media reported that the protest was organized "using social media." But why does that imply that the riot was spontaneous? It doesn't. As the video clearly showed, the rioters were PREPARED, both with hardware and with tactics.

And now I have begun to reflect on the Arab Spring, which likewise was supposedly organized using social media. Who was behind it? Did it all really start with the self-immolation of a vendor in Cairo? Who benefited from it? And how far does their influence reach?

Perhaps the real instigators of yesterday's riot in Sydney were not even present at the riot. Perhaps not even present in Australia.

Faith and politics in Oz

In Australia's 2011 census, it was determined that about 4 percent of Australians attend church on a given Sunday. About 25 percent of the population specified "no religion" on the census. So you would think that religion would be a weak voice in Australian society and politics.

But not if there are political points to be scored! The leader of Australia's Green Party has taken the Catholic Church to task for not putting enough priority on helping the needy. Well, actually, for not hewing to her priorities for social justice and the environment. The article includes the entire rebuttal from the Archbishop of Sydney--a worldly rebuttal, if I may so describe it: the Archbishop doesn't pine for her soul, he attributes her diatribe to her need for publicity.

Australia may be going the way of Europe in terms of the role of faith and religion, that is to say, secularization. Australia is also experiencing an epidemic of clinical depression: one in ten men suffer from it. Coincidence?

A one-trick pony?

The previous post began to examine the idea that a developed nation, such as Australia, ought to strive for an economy with some depth. That is to say, the broader the economy's base, the more robust sectors it has, the less a crash in one sector will affect the whole.

This isn't my idea. A large Australian delegation, including both Opposition and Government leaders, visited the US in July  to conduct numerous meetings and exchanges. One of the discussions was with former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. He made the very pointed comment, "I would warn Australia about over-reliance on commodities." By which he meant mining.

Mining is the leading revenue source in Australia. It is currently in a slump, tightly linked to the Chinese economy. Miners are looking for relief from the Government , but this is a Government committed to social programs for which tax income is essential. This is a debate at the most fundamental level: how much can government tax the leading industry of an economy, without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs? The latest stab at the goose is called the Mineral Resources Rent Tax.

Some people think that stimulating the Australian economy is a matter of financial policy . I know very little about economics. Instead, let's talk about people, about the highly skilled technologists needed for success in today's world. My technical experience is in areas such as spacecraft, robotics and ocean exploration. Australia's presence in these areas is nearly non-existent. Students and PhD's come to me to ask, "What's available in the US?" And my answer is always, "Plenty."

My naive view is that US government policy has had little to do with its economic success. Rather, the US apparently has a climate that encourages innovation, and a history of it. As a result, it's like a "brain magnet" that draws talented people from around the world into its innovation machine. US corporate taxes are actually quite high when compared to other nations (remember that in the US, state taxes add to federal burdens). But the other benefits of the broad US economy, including its fantastic education sector, make it a winner. That shining city on a hill is going to cause a brain drain in Australia.

If you have a technical background in Australia, you are in high demand in the mining industry. In some cases you can earn three times what other industries will pay. What impact does this have on other sectors of Australia? Well, for example, its Navy cannot get underway. There aren't the engineers to repair and maintain the ships. And what if mining doesn't provide you with the intellectual challenge you're looking for? My guess: you'll go abroad.

Australia needs to broaden its economy. It needs to invest in the growth sectors of technology. (Truth in advertising: I work in some of these sectors.) This can't be just a Government initiative, because governments are always inefficient at determining economic priorities. The miners have to pitch in. I believe that smart, wealthy miners can understand that they too need to invest in high-tech growth, even outside their own industry. Because they need bright people, and more of them. For instance, to design, manufacture, operate and repair their  robotic mining systems.

With a broad technology base, bright people can go back and forth between sectors--space, telecommunications, robotics, semiconductors, marine engineering--which have many common skills. Does this really work? Well, Elon Musk started by developing PayPal. Then he created SpaceX and built rockets. Then he founded Tesla Motors and built electric cars. These were all fertile fields that he could farm.

Australia needs a broader range of fertile fields for its technical people. Does anyone here get this?

Familiar story

For anyone who thinks that Australia's problems are different from the US, the debt story is identical. The only thing that differs is the source of revenue. Australia's economy is totally commodity-driven: coal, iron, and agriculture. So when prices drop, the Government has to act in a panic . The US' much broader-based economy cushions such blows. This year's Midwest drought will cause some food prices to go up 5% or so, according to Bloomberg agricultural reporter Alan Bjerga. That will hurt US exports a little. No one is suggesting government budget cuts as a result.

Of course, maybe they should.

An Aussie's reaction

A very good Aussie friend provided this thoughtful reflection on the asylum-seeker post:

"Gordon, there's a lot more to this story than appears on the surface. The previous Govt did introduce the things you're talking about, for very different reasons than are stated I might add, but they are also the ones who built the platform of fear from which the average Australian sees these refugees. Before that, they were rescued if necessary but otherwise brought straight to the mainland onto Australian soil. The fear took care of that as an option and this bastard policy was introduced to keep them offshore. A friend of mine worked for years in health issues in the relocation centres and others worked on education, aid, relocation and on the military side - rescue and return. The politics and wrongheadedness of the situation is a lot more complex than it appears to be. No matter what they do it's a no-win. But there are other Govts and aid and refugee organisations that also need to come in for a share of the blame - not that any of that helps the poor buggers on the boats."

The tragedy of the asylum-seekers

People fleeing political persecution, war, and religious strife look for nations that will offer them a better life. Australia is one of those nations, and it is committed to offering humanitarian refuge to such people. Here is an article describing the preparation of a processing center for such refugees . But the back story is littered with incompetence, intransigence, and death. As a recent arrival in Australia, I can give only my flawed impression of the history, and of recent events. It is not a positive impression.

A large number of asylum-seekers are from Afghanistan and Iran, where danger, religious persecution and turmoil abound. Australia had committed to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that they would accept a significant number of at-risk refugees. The UNHCR process was time consuming. To circumvent this, years ago asylum-seekers started attempting to resettle in Australia by crossing the ocean on boats from Indonesia.

Relationships between Indonesia and Australia were perhaps not the best, so the Indonesians were doing little to stop this traffic. The previous government had put in place several measures to try to stem this human tide, not because Australia could not accept the volume of immigrants, but because the boat voyages were so dangerous. Processing stations for asylum-seekers were erected in neighboring nations, such as Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Australian Navy would force boats to return to Indonesia, if safety permitted. There was a "no-advantage" situation: you could gain asylum in Australia no more quickly if you came by boat than if you went through the normal waiting period for a grant of asylum. With these measures, the boat traffic was reduced to a trickle.

However, life in the offshore processing centers was not pleasant. They are essentially on the equator, so the heat and humidity must have been stifling. There is an awareness that significant mental health problems arose.


The present government had flailed this "inhumane policy" as one of its campaign issues. Shortly after taking power (2008, I believe), the offshore processing centers were closed, and the effort to turn boats back was discontinued. The people-smugglers were back in business--including encouraging their "customers" to destroy their passports before being rescued. So who is really in danger in their home country, and who merely an opportunist?

To maximize profit, of course, people-smugglers board as many people per boat as possible. More than the boat can safely hold, to be sure. Between 2008 and this year, over one thousand people drowned attempting to reach Australia, which includes its far-flung possession Christmas Island.

Does the "inhumane policy" start to look a little less so?

The drownings also happened to come in large batches--so they were newsworthy. Late last year, the government's Immigration Minister recommended to the cabinet that the old policies be reinstated. However, the paper that was the basis for the new government's "more humane approach" was "substantially authored" by the current Prime Minister. So, not gonna happen. The drownings continued. The official tally of deaths since the Immigration Minister was rolled is 338.

A few months ago, the Government's embarrassment became unbearable. It appointed a three-member expert panel to decide what it itself was incapable of. Unsurprisingly, the panel recommended policies that had worked in the past. The offshore processing centers are now being reopened. Australia is increasing the number of refugees per year that it will accept. And once again there will be a "no-advantage" policy (although the expert panel balked at turning the boats back.)

Some people believe that even the restored "inhumane" measures won't work, because the Government has shown itself to be a "soft touch." Certainly, without interdiction at sea, it would seem so. However, there is a new countermeasure to naval interdiction. Reports are that the smugglers drill holes in their boats, and then cork them. When the Royal Australian Navy shows up, the corks are pulled, the boats start to sink, and no choice remains but to rescue them. Once again, however, the asylum-seekers will be delivered to the offshore centers.

Maybe. The first link said that the capacity of the Nauru center "will be 500 by September." And how many people have arrived by boat in 2012? Over eight thousand.

My prediction: more inhumanity, more death, and more government indecision. So sad for Australia.

You can read a statement by the Prime Minister here .

UPDATE: the deaths continue , new policy or no.

The misfortune of the original peoples

As an American, it is hard to cast stones about the status of original peoples. The historical treatment of Native Americans was far more brutal than anything suffered by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

But a multitude of recent news articles have starkly described today's aboriginals as living in squalor and misery . Youth are apparently at risk of "petrol sniffing." Charities attempt to address low rates of indigenous literacy, and high rates of indigenous suicide. Billboards promoting work for indigenous literacy are popping up all around Sydney. It's no picnic to live on a reservation in America, either, but conditions in aboriginal communities are shocking.

I first tuned into this while reading an article in the local sports pages. A big young aboriginal man, a superb rugby player, had been recruited onto one of the national teams. The article described his origins and his new life in detail. It showed his big smile absent the left front tooth, which is traditionally knocked out as an initiation rite. Then it was mentioned that the athlete had to teach some Pinjinjantjari words to his teammates because he could not speak English. That was an eye-opener.

More recently, I watched a documentary about the life of the aboriginal singer Gurrumul, who has an international following. His difficulty in integrating into modern society was acute, and he is a success only because of the heroic efforts of his producer/accompanist. True, Gurrumul's challenges were more difficult because he is blind, but I had the sense that tremendous obstacles would have stood in his way even if he had been sighted.

The sorry state of Australia's original peoples stands in stark contrast to the Maori of New Zealand. Maori have some separated communities and special buildings called marae, but their English is perfect and they are full participants in New Zealand society and economy. When we met the keeper of a marae in Christchurch, we were honored to be given an extended explanation of the marae's function, history and design. Our guide's English was perfect. Same for a Maori museum docent in Oamaru.

I hope to learn more about the Australian aboriginal situation, and what is being done to make a genuine improvement. Some excellent services are provided, such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which mitigates the lack of high quality medical care at distant communities. Much else has evidently been lip service and half-measures. One wonders what aboriginal people themselves would like to see happen, and how well that has been communicated to the rest of Australia.

During the Olympics, one particular commercial was aired over and over . It showed a teenage white Australian girl on a farm, training herself to run. She had scratched a track into the middle of a stubbled corn field. As she ran, a background sound track replayed the final moments of a race, which I later learned was from the 2000 Sydney games. As the young girl finished her training run, a smiling aboriginal woman appeared from out of nowhere to greet her. The woman was unnamed in the commercial; but evidently she needed no introduction in Australia. Knowing who she is now, I love that commercial. Reviving Cathy Freeman's triumph in the 400m as a message of inspiration for young people was a beautiful way of honoring her legacy. I hope that that sentiment sparks Australian efforts to work together with the aboriginal population to establish a decent environment for them.

Blown away by Singapore

Singapore--a little jewel, an oasis of prosperity amidst the squalor of Malaysia and Indonesia, an Asian Tiger, a benevolent dictatorship beloved by democracies, the Shopping Mall of Asia. Whenever I think back on our ten days there, it's always, "Singapore. Wow." 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It begins to make an impression even before you arrive. If you are fortunate enough to fly in on Singapore Airlines, you are treated to the elegant, slender, colorful sarongs of the beautiful flight attendants. The Asian cuisine on the plane is delicious. Service is more attentive than on other airlines. Then you fill out your Singapore immigration card, and are jarred by the red-letter message at the bottom: "WARNING: DEATH TO DRUG DEALERS." 

It turns out that that pre-arrival juxtaposition of beauty and harshness is an apt metaphor for the Singapore experience. The beauty is always in sight; the harshness is less visible, but stems from Singapore's insistence on order and efficiency, from the eternal temptations of corruption, drugs and gambling, and from a tenuous geopolitical situation amid much more populous rivals.

We were traveling so my wife could assist one of her employees. He, a Singapore native, had transferred back after 20 years in Australia. We talked extensively about his impressions, the changes since his childhood, his present likes and dislikes. Another useful source was the cabbies: intelligent, well-spoken. All Singapore cabbies are Singaporean. Immigrants need not apply. Like all Singaporeans, my cabbies were of Chinese, Malay, or Indian ethnicity, with tolerable accents, and their pride in their country was unlike any I've experienced in any other country. I read the Straits Times every day, my main source for economic and international relations information, but also for the local stories that made the place more human. I attended the Singapore International Water Week expo, and learned about Singapore’s brilliant investments in its infrastructure. A trip through the history section of the Singapore National Museum gave me the basics of Singaporean history from tribal days to the present. Finally, my meanderings as a tourist left their own impression. 

Grabbing a cab at the airport, I started peppering the cabbie with questions right away. My first question was about water: it's an island surrounded by salt water, with no room for agriculture. Where does the water come from? "When we became independent, we had only three reservoirs. Now we have ten. There is also an inflatable dam that has turned one of our bays from salt water to fresh. This means that we no longer have to import water from Malaysia." It turns out he was mistaken about that; Singapore still gets 40% of its water from Malaysia, but several water works have been turned over by Singapore to the Malaysian government, and Singapore hopes to be water-independent in 40 years or so. They collect rainwater, and you get fined if you wash your car and let the runoff go into the drains. They desalinate. They purify waste water. Water is success, and survival.

On another cab ride, driving through the Orchard Road shopping district, I asked about real estate prices. "Do you see that building, the Ion Building? A flat there costs $5,000 a square foot." I was sure he meant per square meter, but he was right. A small apartment there, and in many of the upscale high rises, cost five million dollars. Of course, those aren't for ordinary mortals. But in the paper, I saw an extensive real estate listing for where the locals live, and no property was less than $700 a square foot. Most Singaporeans own their places, rentals are rare; the lowest price I heard, and this was for a government-built place, was $300,000. Building projects go on 12 hours a day, seven days a week; this includes both commercial construction projects (an apartment building across the street from our room) and public works (water projects, the new Marina Coast Highway). You cannot turn around without seeing building cranes.

AN ECONOMIC CORNUCOPIA

What is driving this boom? In my wife’s words, Singapore is “one big cash-making machine.” Obviously, one source of the wealth is the strategic Singapore Strait. If a ship going from the Indian Ocean to China bypasses it, at least a thousand miles are added to the journey. My first view of the Strait, just after sunset, was breathtaking. The horizon was bejewelled with the lights of ships. I have seen masses of ships in many ports, but never so many in one place as those at anchor and transiting the Strait. Capitalizing on that volume, Singapore’s port has grown so that its throughput now exceeds Hong Kong’s. Other pillars of the economy include oil refining (shortening the trips for the supertankers, tankers headed for China and Japan can now carry refined products instead of crude); semiconductor manufacturing (4th largest output in the world, the industry that has bootstrapped so many Asian Tigers); and, of course, tourism. 

AN OBEDIENT SOCIETY

Orchard Road gleams, and it bustles day and night. All of Asia shops there, because the government diligently patrols for counterfeiters--if a Japanese tourist buys a Rolex there, she can be sure it's a Rolex. It's part of the social compact: lots of rules and regulations, but if everyone follows them, everyone will become very well off. It seems to work. There's a rule against chewing gum; and in fact there is no chewing gum stuck to the sidewalks. Pedestrians and cars stop and go when they're supposed to. To own a car in Singapore, you have to buy a permit over and above the price of the car. The permit costs $50,000. And there are plenty of cars. NICE cars. And the city is just generally beautiful. The label "Garden City" is totally appropriate, and not just in the lovely Botanic Gardens.

Singaporeans acknowledge their own limitations. Our magnificent hotel, the Marina Bay Sands, included a casino, whose gross revenues in 2011 were S$2.3 billion. To get into the casino, you have to bring your passport. And if you happen to be Singaporean, it's a $100 entrance fee, thank you very much. When I asked why, the cabbie said, "Because we are gambling addicts." It's the same story with the "death to drug dealers" warning: Singapore knows how drug addiction had hobbled their society in colonial days, and it is determined to prevent that happening again. One convicted drug dealer was shown clemency by the judge: he was allowed to touch his mother's hand before they hung him. Lesser crimes are punished by caning. I said to our Singaporean friend, "Well, it's cheaper than prison," to which he replied, "It's and, not or." A news story on a gang knifing spelled out the sentences for those convicted, and said, "They are also liable for caning."  I would think that caning would reduce recidivism to negligible levels, although I have no statistics.

SINGAPORE'S PLACE IN THE WORLD

The social compact, which accepts such a highly regulated society, and the rise of Singapore from third world to one of the world's most prosperous nations, are intimately related, and apparently the vision of the first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. His biography is amazing, as far back as his Double First at Cambridge. On government websites, he is still referred to as Minister Mentor. He wept when union with Malaysia broke down in 1965; it is clear who is weeping now.  

Driving down Napier Road toward our hotel, the 6-story U.S. Embassy made an imposing sight. Not particularly an attractive building, although with some Oriental features, there is a 10-foot bas relief Great Seal out front. The visual impression is, "The United States of America thinks that its relationship with Singapore is important." The Chinese Embassy, actually a larger complex, is around the corner and appears insubstantial from the road. How Chinese. The British High Council is between them.

In addition to having powerful friends, Singapore has an ass-kicking military out of all proportion to its small population and size--six submarines, six of the most advanced stealth frigates, more F-15s and F-16s than you can imagine. Recently the US has home-ported its two Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore. I got to walk past a detachment of Singapore Special Operations Forces as they executed an impromptu patrol in front of the U.S. Embassy. They did not smile. They did not look like people to try and make smile. Singapore is 4 million secular capitalists surrounded by 100 million Muslims.

While I was in Singapore, a new chief executive was installed in Hong Kong. The Chinese General Secretary, Hu Jintao, was there to commemorate the event, as were 500,000 people in the streets of Hong Kong warning against restrictions on democracy. Hu Jintao said repeatedly, "One country, two systems," meaning that he did not intend to try to smother Hong Kong's political system. At the same time, Kennedy-esque, he encouraged Hong Kong to think about what they could do for China. This was very prominent in Singapore news. 

SINGAPOREANA

I would return to Singapore whenever the opportunity might arise. It is a fantastic place. I will just end by listing some moments of pleasure, which won't mean nearly as much to you as they do to me.

Chilli Crab at the Long Beach restaurant, eating outside on a perfect evening, watching the thousand lights on the ships in Singapore Strait.
 

The history section of the Singapore National Museum.
 

Fish Head Curry at the Banana Leaf Apolo (spelled differently and no relation to the Greek god, as far as I can tell), where the sharp-toothed head stares at you from a pungent sauce as you devour it.

The National Orchid Garden, where I learned that the black orchid is not only something of legend, and saw new orchid varietals that had been named after visiting VIPs.

The Arab quarter on Victoria Road, and the beautiful mosque with the banner advertising its website and evening social activities.

Breakfast at the Regent Hotel, where you could have American, European, Japanese, or Chinese, but I always went for local fare--steamed buns, satay, congee, garoupa.

Standing atop the 57-story Marina Bay Sands, on a cantilevered balcony the size of a 747, the best view in Singapore.

Gardens by the Bay, with its orchid-covered "supertrees" and signs in the four official languages--English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

The sense of relief on the bus back to Singapore, after spending a day across the Johor River in Malaysia.

I boarded the plane to fly away with a genuine longing to return.

Pick up your pallet and go home

           My household goods finally arrived in Sydney after their ocean voyage. They left Los Angeles on the beautifully named Cap Blanche, voyage number 287S, Lloyds register number 9311775. No more than 12 days at sea, over seven weeks were expended end-to-end. The load waited in LA to be aggregated with other cargo to fill a container, and at the Sydney end, there was the unloading and processing through Customs. Today, finally, I was to pick up the sorely needed clothes and engineering textbooks, and Stacia got her shoes and her precious sheet music.

            Driving up to the warehouse office, I had to weave between large trucks and the lifts that handle the huge ocean containers. I felt the need to explain to the pretty, young warehouse clerk that I’d never done this before. That was probably apparent. I explained my one concern: I was sure that my 19 boxes were on a pallet, but I had only a small rented van, so I’d need to break down the shipment to get it into the van. She gave me a very serious look and said:

            —You know you have to take everything with you, right?
The implication was that she didn’t want me leaving the pallet behind. The mental wheels started turning, but I was pretty sure that I could squeeze the pallet into the van.

            Then at the warehouse, the young, burly forklift driver set the tightly wrapped mound of boxes down next to my van. He looked skeptically at the tiny vehicle, gave me a very serious look, and said:

            —You know you have to take everything with you, right?

This was familiar. Clearly, these people did not want to be put in the pallet disposal business.        Much later, I realized that this conversation could have gone entirely a different way:

            —Gee, you know, sir, if you don’t have any use for that pallet, we’re always a little short of them around here…

            That is decidedly not what happened. Evidently there was once a Pallet Plague, devastating in its effects, which still lives in the memory of this warehouse company. The Pallet Plague: pallets obstructing the warehouse doors, pallets filling the pads where the giant seagoing containers should rest, pallets crunching under the wheels of the semis. Perhaps the horror predated my two young warehouse employees, but they had been inoculated with the legend, lending authority to their take-that-thing-with-you messages.

            Back to reality: with careful stacking on top of folded rear seats, all 19 of my boxes were squeezed into the little van, whose entire rear section was then devoted to the decrepit, splintered, unwanted pallet; the pallet, now scorned, that had borne its burden from LA to Sydney without complaint. The drive home was uneventful, and a little exertion with a hand truck got our long-awaited goods into the apartment. Living would now be a little less Spartan.

            It took less than an hour for the nagging thought to intrude: how am I going to get rid of the pallet? The other wrapping materials had fit nicely into the recycling bin, but no way was a shipping pallet going to squeeze in, or even into the room. Then I thought, Ah! I’ll call Bal! Bal is the cleaning and maintenance guy for our apartment building. Bal knows stuff. He’ll be helpful.

            —Bal, my household goods have arrived, and I have a shipping pallet to dispose of. Can you suggest how to proceed?

            —Oh no, that is the owner’s responsibility. We do not dispose of packing materials.

            —Uh, OK.

            —Not even the Council will accept packing materials for disposal.

(The Council is the North Sydney Council, the smallest unit of local government here.)

            —Hmmm. Do you have any thoughts on what I can do with the pallet?

            —I’m afraid you’ll have to take it to the tip.

Somehow, from deep in my primordial store of infrequently used English words, I knew that a “tip” was the dump, the transfer station, the place where garbage is aggregated. We were making progress. Bal told me where the nearest tip was, just a few kilometers from our apartment. And thank goodness, I hadn’t returned the rented van yet.

            The tip had the slightly acrid odor typical of large concentrations of garbage (anything larger than your kitchen dustbin.) An employee was hosing down the asphalt, creating a murky gray puddle of water oozing into the street. Ominously, there was a toll station at the entrance. On the toll booth was a sign that said, “Minimum $55 charge for up to 160 kilos.” Yow. With luck, that would not apply to me. Or perhaps the toll taker would see that my single pallet was so inconsequential that he would waive the fee.

            —What do you have?

            —One pallet.

            —Hmm, that’s going to cost you $55.

He looked extremely apologetic. I decided to exploit his embarrassment:

            —Do you have any other ideas?

Helpfully, he turned to a co-worker, and asked her if one outfit or another would recycle pallets. No luck though. I thanked him and asked if I could turn the van around in his facility, because I was going to find another way. His consent was accompanied by a sympathetic look. Even he, deputized by the Council to collect waste fees, could see that charging $55 to get rid of ten pounds of crappy wood was a bit dear. I think it’s pretty steep even for getting rid of 160 kilos of crappy wood, but perhaps that’s my American profligacy showing. And note that the toll guy did NOT let me sneak my ten pounds of crappy wood onto the enormous pile of crap in the tip.

            So I began to drive. And as I drove, without a plan, without a clue, I started to ruminate on the many disparate aspects of economics and human endeavor that had culminated in my wasting a beautiful afternoon in Sydney, trying to conform to the Australian social compact for waste reduction while trying to get rid of a goddamned shipping pallet.

            First, it was clear that Sydney is serious about minimizing waste disposal. I’d already sensed this earlier, on moving into our apartment. The “Rubbish and Recycling Room” on our floor had a sign next to the chute saying, “ONLY food waste is to go into this chute. ALL other materials are to go into the recycling bins.” A quick check on the bins proved that my neighbors indeed respected this procedure.  All manner of trash was in those recycling bins—empty Starbucks cups, plastic wrap, jar lids—which I would thoughtlessly have thrown out with the spoiled lettuce. I recognized the $55 tipping fee as being of a piece with this mentality. And clearly, my four-foot-by-four-foot pallet was a consequential addition to a landfill.

            So then, still driving with no destination, I began to wonder if there wasn’t some useful application to which my pallet could be put. One could immediately exclude “use the wood for building stuff.” Pallets are made of the softest, ugliest, cheapest, most flawed, flimsy, splintered wood that can be put to a useful purpose outside of a stove. But what uses for the entire assembled pallet? Ah, perhaps pallets would make suitable beds for homeless people! Some beds, like pallets, do have slats. And filling the pallet’s interior (where the forklift forks slide in) would yield a good insulator against the cold of a sidewalk. But I knew of no Pallet Distribution for Homeless Bedding Agency here in Sydney, nor anywhere else. This for the good and proper reason that, once we decide really to make homeless people more comfortable, we can do better than handing them shipping pallets. No other utilitarian purpose for a shipping pallet came to mind. Except shipping.

            Which begs the question: was my pallet really, truly worthless to the shipping industry? Why was I stuck with it? The shipping company in Los Angeles made no effort to recover it, nor any of the entities here in Sydney. Shippers no doubt purchase them by the pallet-load at some inconsequential price, since there is no effort made whatsoever to recover them. And my shipping fees no doubt included the pallet cost. I had actually purchased this pallet, having not realized it at the time; I was its legal owner. Evidently shipping pallets are ubiquitous, a drug on the market. Yet imagine how many billions of dollars of goods ride across the oceans on these unvalued objects.

            Sliding down yet another intellectual drainpipe, I began an appreciation of a pallet as an item of craft. Who or what makes pallets? Is it machine or man? Pallets are not beautiful, but they certainly are functional. The boards are not perfectly square, but nearly so; the simple design incorporates an infinite variety of cargo, sometimes of great weight. I drove past a stone and tile purveyor, noticing pallets bearing a full ton each of cut stone. These pallets truly seemed to groan.

            Yet pallets are beneath contempt. Look at an ordinary cardboard box sometime, one that is for office papers, for vegetables or for moving from Los Angeles to Sydney. The boxes are pre-printed with an identity, a pedigree: their manufacturer, their strength, their volume, even the date they were made. Not so the lowly shipping pallet. Nowhere is “Made in Malaysia” burned into the wood; there is no guarantee of performance, no pride of craftsmanship. Pallets are as trivial as wire clothes hangers. And yet again, the commerce of the world moves atop them.

            Eventually, I was granted a glimpse of Ultimate Truth, which was: “I want to get rid of this pallet and go home.” Thus ended the scattered musings of the warm afternoon. Another pearl: “To get rid of a pallet, one must go where there are other pallets.” Knowing something of Sydney’s economy, I headed for Parramatta Road. Parramatta Road is a six-lane, shopper-choked asphalt river of commerce headed west out of the city. Its decaying shops, ugly strip malls, sheet-metal warehouses and shiny new superstores might harbor the answer to my problem. They were a part of the infrastructure. They shipped, and were shipped to. They knew pallets.

            But a new thought intruded: what was an ethical protocol for pallet-dispatch? I had passed a shop or two with empty pallets sitting around; would they mind one more added to the pile? How did they ditch their surplus pallets, and what did it cost them? Perhaps some business would actually have been grateful for one more pallet. But which would that be?

            Without having any insight into that, it was clear that the larger the business, the less impact one more pallet would make, one way or the other. So I headed for the absolutely biggest enterprise I knew of: the Sydney Markets. I saw this sprawling complex while tackling a chore earlier in the month. Markets: pallets. But on arriving, I confronted, once again, a toll-taker at the entrance. It turns out that the public is not welcome at the Sydney Markets. Here instead is the region’s wholesale nexus; here is the vast distribution center where groceries are bought and sold by the ton for the grocery chains feeding Sydney’s four million.

            Retreating in defeat, I was taunted by the sight of vast stacks of pallets at the Sydney Markets. Unlike my rough, naked pallet, theirs were painted blue, their wood smooth and square. My pallet’s tattered look would have made it contemptible even among other pallets.

            But in less than five more minutes of aimless driving, I suddenly saw, and nearly passed before recognizing, the solution to the disposal problem. It was a forlorn storefront with stacks of pallets out front, and no one inside. It was obviously a failed business, its plate glass windows dark. Whether my pallet would be a burden or a blessing, I would never know. I pulled in abruptly, got my pallet out, chucked it onto a stack and hastened back onto the busy road. I never thanked my pallet for its selfless support of its cargo across the thousands of Pacific miles it travelled. Pricking me to hurry was a fantasy of some curmudgeon, heretofore unseen, running toward the van and growling,            

            —Hey, you, you can’t stick me with that pallet! Come back here!

            So, a craven end to a well-intentioned errand.  And yes, if you must ask, I used up about $20 of petrol on my pallet odyssey.        

            Epilogue: the word “pallet” is not used in the King James Bible. It does occur in the Revised Standard Version and the New American Version, in exactly one place. “Pallet” appears in the Gospels of Mark and John, in a story of a man lame from birth. Jesus, encountering the paralytic, said,       

            —Your sins are forgiven.

Onlookers decried that utterance as blasphemy, but then Jesus said,

            —Which do you think is easier, to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your pallet (“bed” in the King James) and walk? But so you know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins (he said to the paralytic) rise up, take your pallet and go home.

            My shipping pallet and the sleeping pallet of the paralytic were anonymous. We do not even know the name of the paralytic. I gave no thought to my pallet until confronted by the need to be rid of it. Yet these objects were dendritically connected to larger things.  My pallet taught me about how an economy relies on an infrastructure of valueless things and undervalued people. The paralytic’s pallet was a homely detail in the story of a miracle. The human mind is transported by inconsequential objects to realms worthy of its attention.