The light at the end of....

Can't help but laugh looking at this phd comic. Exactly what I feel at the moment.

(From phdcomics.com)

10 Reasons to Study Economics

1. Economists are armed and dangerous: "Watch out for our invisible hands."
2. Economists can supply it on demand.
3. You can talk about money without ever having to make any.
4. You get to say "trickle down" with a straight face.
5. Mick Jagger and Arnold Schwarzenegger both studied economics and look how they turned out.
6. When you are in the unemployment line, at least you will know why you are there.
7. If you rearrange the letters in "ECONOMICS", you get "COMIC NOSE".
8. Although ethics teaches that virtue is its own reward, in economics we get taught that reward is its own virtue.
9. When you get drunk, you can tell everyone that you are just researching the law of diminishing marginal utility.
10. When you call 1-900-LUV-ECON and get Kandi Keynes, you will have something to talk about.

(Source: JokEc)

How to reduce crime Part 2.

It is quite disheartening to read today's news in the Brudirect regarding students' involvement in criminal activities. I believe it is not the job of the police alone to reduce and prevent such activities happening (which are alarmingly increasing). And I also do not agree that we should totally rely on the parents of these teenage delinquencies to perform the 'correct' parenting roles as according to the police supt.:
"The majority of cases that involve students are from broken homes and those who are gullible and easily influenced by friends."

My interpretation of 'broken home' here is a family who do not live in an environment where children can grow up healthily (mentally and physically). You see, the most important years of a human's life are the first three. During these years, skills such as communication, empathy, compromise and recognising good and bad are developed, which will help the children to make good (and bad) decisions later in their lives. Children who come from 'broken families' are hardly exposed to such skills. Worse, if any of their parents or family-members are involved in criminal activities, then the likelihood for these children to be involved in the same activities are high.

For this reason, I believe it is now time for Brunei to think outside the box and adopt a more holistic approach involving not only the police, but also education, health and social care. Early years initiatives perhaps can be offered to help support the PARENTS who have criminal records, who are unemployed and teenage parents (which I blogged a few days ago) who I believe have greater risks of not performing the 'correct' parenting roles. Supports such as regular social-care visits, counselling and/or financially should be looked into. I also think that it is imperative for the relevant government agencies (not only the police) to play an ACTIVE role in identifying the 'high risk' parents and their children and to give the proper supports in order to prevent future criminal conducts (made by those children).

Echoing what I said in my previous blog about teenage parents, I believe the first measure to future crime prevention is to provide education to these young parents so that they and their children can have better future. And again please.....do it immediately.

Salaam.

The employer speaks at last!

I am very pleased with the new JPA memo regarding external tea break during office hours. It is about time (and long overdue) that such activity be banned. I guess you don't need to be an economist to understand the benefit it will bring to the public sector. (Well, ironically it may hurt the private sector for a little while i.e. the restaurants being deprived of patrons). Perhaps we may see office food delivery service on the rise.

Another office rule that I believe should be implemented is to to limit the number of hours an office meeting should last. An officer may not be away from his/her office but is still impossible to find as he/she is ALWAYS in a meeting.

Salaam.