Above all else

The gathering of old friends, especially old army friends, likely goes much the same around the world.  We marvel at those who have kept fit, laugh at eccentricities of past comrades, and raise a glass to those who have left us.  I recently caught up with my 93/94 OCCET (Officer Cadet Course, Engineer Term) friends for dinner, and it was as good as ever. It beggars belief that it has been twenty-three years since we first stepped through those Jurong Camp II gates!  It was so so good to see all of you!!! For a while, we amuse ourselves by struggling to remember the actual names of those who we've lost contact with.  Top Gun may have had "Maverick", "Iceman" and "Viper".  But we had Scud (cool), Ice (still cool), Puffy (OK less cool), Kooshkin (um, a 90s puffball toy), Kermit and Sebastian (not so much actual names as references to Muppets' green amphibian and the red crustacean in the Little Mermaid :)).  A Few Good Men may not have been ...

I read with interest the article in the Straits Times of 15 May 2016, on the events regarding the initial intention to maintain a common currency and reserve bank for Malaysia and Singapore in the immediate aftermath of separation in 1965, and the discussions that led to the decision in 1966 to have separate currencies and reserve banks instead.  Coming hard on the heels of the August 1965 separation of Singapore from Malaya, it must have seemed to many Singaporeans, and indeed our own leaders at the time, that things were falling apart. Today, it seems inconceivable that we could have had a common currency with Malaysia.  From par value, today the exchange rate between the Malaysian ringgit and the Singapore dollar is almost three times, demonstrating the vastly different needs of each country over the years, in managing their respective economies.  It seems equally inconceivable for the two countries to work with a common central bank , given how differently our phi...