The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Book about Singapore hawkers for heritage fest Posted: 21 Jul 2013 06:07 PM PDT Hawkers in Singapore got a boost in a book called Not For Sale: Singapore's Remaining Heritage Street Food Vendors launched recently. Taking almost 3 years to complete, the book focuses on 10 women hawkers among 300 in the island republic and is spiced with black-and-white photographs. "A lot of these hawkers are retiring during this period, a lot of them are already at a very old age," said the book's project leader Sinma DaShow, reported todayonline.com "Their trade is either going to be vanishing or will really be gone forever, if no one comes to document it, archive it for the future generation ... We're just concerned that future generations, our own kids, may not even know some of these food or places we've grown up with." The book, co-authored by Singapore-based photographer Jim Orca, is part of Singapore HeritageFest 2013. The authors are conducting a guided tour for the public to four famous hawker centres, as part of the festival. The tours will go on for four weekends until Aug 10, and will include East Coast Park Lagoon Hawker Centre and Circuit Road Hawker Centre. Registration is on a first-come-first-served basis, and each tour is limited to 20 participants. More information can be found at heritagefest.org.sg. The book is priced at S$88 (RM211) and can be found at www.notforsale.sg. – July 22, 2013. |
| Ex-governor Spitzer’s capitalist manifesto Posted: 21 Jul 2013 05:29 PM PDT Does your capitalism espouse strong government, tough regulations and a tax system that seeks to improve the lot of society's poorest? Or do you believe in small government, self-regulation and taxation that doesn't "penalise" hard work? This is the debate that Eliot Spitzer, New York's former governor, attorney general, and Democratic hopeful for New York City comptroller, jumps into in his book, "Protecting Capitalism - Case by Case." It's no surprise which side Spitzer is backing. As attorney general from 1999 to 2006, he earned the moniker the "Sheriff of Wall Street" for going after dubious practices at mortgage lenders and big banks. "Protecting Capitalism" traces Spitzer's career in a series of anecdotes - from his time as a newly minted prosecutor taking down the Gambino family, who controlled New York's garment and trucking industries - to battles with Wall Street banks. The book portrays Spitzer as theorist, politician and lawyer, a man who can develop a big vision of what society should be, link it to nitty-gritty policy minutiae, and deliver it. It is the manifesto of a politician trying to resurrect his career after his abrupt resignation in the wake of a sex scandal. Readers looking for a tell-all, revealing details about his liaisons with prostitutes that forced his resignation as New York governor in 2008, will be disappointed. His infidelity is cryptically referenced in a discussion about fiduciary responsibility. "I am not blind to the fair claim that I, in a very public way, failed to respect a fiduciary obligation that is perhaps even more central," Spitzer wrote. Central to Spitzer's thesis is that American history took a wrong turn in 1981. Ronald Reagan's presidency heralded the ascendance of a radical deregulation agenda, a "market-based ideology that swept our nation." The result was the market cataclysm that occurred in 2008, Spitzer wrote. He does not assign any blame to Democratic President Bill Clinton, who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and exempted credit default swaps from regulation. As comptroller, Spitzer wants to channel the power of small shareholders that he believes has been usurped by a small group of intermediaries in the mutual fund business. "We own Wall Street," is Spitzer's rallying cry, citing data that shows growing stock ownership over the last century, from 1 percent of the population in 1900 to 52 percent by 1998. He talks about leveraging that power to drive a progressive agenda, from getting big business out of political lobbying to reining in "imperial CEOs". But do "we" own enough of Wall Street to make a difference? Spitzer's book includes a chart that shows 20 percent of the population owns 93 percent of the nation's wealth. Despite its witty, insightful anecdotes and intelligent arguments, "Protecting Capitalism" is a bit of a ragtag collection, resembling, at times, an Economics or Finance 101 lecture, a political treatise, and a self-help manual. – Reuters, July 22, 2013. |
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