"Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation." - Kin Hubbard

***

Quotes

[On icebreakers] The purpose of this was partly to annoy you on a Monday morning

[On apathy] The natural thing to do is to fold your arms and smile a lot, as at the beginning of the semester.

Why dowe need the PAP in power?... If not everyone will kill everyone [else]. Singapore will sink into the sea, like Atlantis.

You look puzzled. There are readings. It's a common thing for a module to have readings.

mutching pennies game (matching)

head or tail (heads or tails)

We both choose hair'ds (heads)

Let's see the fry'mores Prisoner's Dilemma (famous)

I meet youand say 'let's do zees' (this)

bah'let (ballet)

[On a guy going for ballet with someone] I will enjoy [it] because she will be there.

Mr Column. He is also [a] smart guy. In the market everyone is smart.

[On game theory] Players in the market, they are very smart. Not often they are economists. They are engineers. (are they)

[On a repeated game] You will see me every week. We will play [the] game 13 times.

hunting a stug (stag)

final game (finite)

Cournot game, is it a finite game?... 2 is a very finite number.

Nash equilibrium, invented 1950. Just recently.

[On the Honours class] The smarter they get, the uglier they get. [Me: How about us?] Present company excluded, as usual... [Student 2: I'm not smart. So I'm pretty] [Me: Would you rather be smart or pretty?] [Student 2: Pretty, because I can diao jing kui. {Translation: Catch a rich tortoise}]

The best thing about game theory is that you can go to the end without mathematics. Just differentiation.

Now I will show you [how to solve this] in a very very complicated way. Because I had an exam in Toulouse and I almost failed to solve this in time. So now it is a matter of my honour that I show it to you.

How to solve zis poem (this point)

My philosophy of philosophy is that philosophy is crap.

You know the girls in maths are really pretty? Serious serious serious.

[On diversity in groupings] There's diversity of gender. If you look deeper, diversity of class. If you really deep, diversity of sexuality.

Future direction from an imaginary past. Some glorious past... Asian Values.

A person of this kind, a person of this pedigree, family name, is always obeyed because that's the way it's always been.

[On Plato] What kind of skills are required for expertise in the Nation State? Law. Economics. Mathematics. Thus you have the Triumvirate of ***, ***, ***.

Kinda Keen'zeer'n (Keynesian)

[On the reserves] The moment we are compassionate, it will bleed to zero and Singapore will collapse and sink into the sea... 'We cannot have welfare'

Socrates was, not just according to Plato, a really annoying person. He would walk up to people - people he wouldn't know - and ask: 'So, what is justice?' I'm sure you've met people like this at parties.

Those who can see through the conventional wisdom of the age are often regarded as mad.

Stair'ter scoh (status quo)

A very familiar sounding myth... Gold has to marry gold... how does it begin to degenerate? Sex.

Scholarships. Let's go through this very quickly. So you can discuss this later. You can put *** on trial... You come back, you're bonded. The word is 'bond', can you imagine?

Half the nation are made to do some form of National Service. Reinforce their masculinity... The other half sit there and admire them... Instead, in the prime of their lives, of being student activists, put them in uniform. A place ruled by regimentation, by brutality.

*Puts hagiography on table* What we want to do is to set you up for a trial, of this man... I'm gonna ask for 10 volunteers to prosecute this man. Whatever is said stays within this room.

I realise that USP classes, people bo hia (?) accent. I buay jalan.

All the books I got from closed stacks, all the books are Marxist books.

This course, ***, is a very interesting course. Believe me.

We'll have a break, but hold on for a while. We're only at page 2.

If there are only 3 of you who choose this course, you will have a very large share of my time.

Sociological arse'pecks (aspects)

In the workplace. Not in academia. In the workplace.

It gives you a lot of insight for relatively little mathematics. There're a lot of books with very rigorous mathematics, but the insight you get about the real world is not a lot.

Something like evaluation and exams - is that what anyone here cares about? Or are you here purely for learning and wisdom?

[On analysing economic development] The point of your paper is not 'we are good performers compared to Singapore'

I was in a taxi driver this morning (taxi)

30% of the labour force in Singapore is basically ex'pay'tree'ates (expatriates)

[On Singapore having favorable initial conditions on independence: strategic location, small city state, few environmental disasters, entrepot history, colonial legacy] The government will say 'That is not the case'

[On explaining Singapore's economic development] Upfront in the book I wrote all the negatives about Singapore that I had ever heard.

[On pragmatic socialism vs authoritarian capitalism] Singapore defies easy classification because it has lots of paradoxes.

[On Singapore] 93% of Singaporeans own their houses... More than 80% of the land is owned by the state. That's like North Korea, Cuba.

Thank you, if you don't intend to take this course and have lots 1 hour of your valuable lives.

[On shopping week] I can understand you're really tired of shopping. Shop till you drop.

People call me Ed, Eddie, Your Highness... just call me Ed. If you're not used to that, practise.

We can negotiate whether it is an easy exam or a hard exam. Closed book or open book.

Have you heard of the Undergraduate University? Everything you learn in a 4 year University Course you can learn in 5 minutes.

[On transplanting institutions] Why don't we just adopt the constitution of Singapore? Then we can develop... One party state, GRCs, high minister's salaries.

The third week, and this is the only thing I learnt from a public policy degree, market failure and government failures... Everything you learn in a Masters Course you can learn in 5 minutes.

Some people prefer to gumbo (gamble)

Government failures. Unfortunately the literature is concerned with Western democracies... There is not much on government failure in a one-party state.

Would you put Donald Trump in jail? Economics would say 'give him a light term. He's productive'

[On marriage vows] These are unwritten. These are rules in use. Or unsed.

Regression models. Don't worry, if you have not taken Econometrics before I can explain it to you in 5 minutes.

Midterm. 3 hour exam, closed book. We can talk about it. Depends on the preferences of the market.

un use'swirl (unusual)