“USD Hosting Philosophy Lectures This Week” plus 3 more

USD Hosting Philosophy Lectures This Week
Interview: Russian pavilion embodies traditional Chinese philosophy
CalPERS changes policy on real estate investing
The Bastardisation of the "Social Contract" - part 1

USD Hosting Philosophy Lectures This Week

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 01:47 AM PDT

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Interview: Russian pavilion embodies traditional Chinese philosophy

Posted: 19 Apr 2010 07:34 PM PDT

The design of the Russian pavilion in Shanghai World Expo embodies traditional Chinese philosophies and could meet eastern people's aesthetics, Levon Airapetov, the chief designer of Russian pavilion told Xinhua.

"I have thrown myself into the designing of the Russian pavilion which I hope can better embody both Russian style and Chinese philosophy," Airapetov, an architect obsessed with Chinese culture and philosophy, said.

He said he tried to reflect in his design the philosophy of " different but not separate" which was raised by the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi. For example, the 12 towers around the pavilion, with three different colors of white, golden and red, are designed to represent a multi-ethnic Russia.

The white represents pure hearts, golden symbolizes the color of wheat and rich, while the red stands for beauty, Airapetov explained. Meanwhile, the pictures and patterns on the tower bodies, also standing for different Russian ethics, are mixed but harmoniously matched.

Another philosophy Ariapetov wanted to show in the pavilion design is "changing," which was the essential of one of China's most well-known classics "The Book of Changes."

Ariapetov said the appearance of the Russian pavilion looks like the sun, which symbolizes a "tree of life," while the 12 towers surrounding it are the roots and the top of the towers look like unfinished, which means an ideal city should be always in changing and developing.

Referring to the future ideal city, Airapetov said an ideal city for human beings should consist of one third of its space for parks for nature, one third for culture and arts, and one third for buildings for living. In this sense, the Russian pavilion with three floors could be viewed as an ideal future city model which perfectly combines the elements of air, earth and mankind.

The first floor of the pavilion is decorated as a green and beautiful Flower City, in which all facilities are huge in size, so as to let visitors feel themselves small and be children again. The second floor, as the Solar City, will mainly exhibit the technological achievements by Russian youth. A Moon City is presented in the third floor to ignite visitors' boundless imagination about the future world.

"I really hope Chinese visitors can enjoy my design," he said in the end of the interview.

The Russian pavilion, with a total area of 6,000 square meters, is one of the biggest exhibition sites at the Shanghai Expo.

For the first time in 30 years, Russia is spending some 1.1 billion rubles (around 37 million U.S. dollars) to construct its Expo pavilion rather than renting one from the host country.

Source: Xinhua

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CalPERS changes policy on real estate investing

Posted: 19 Apr 2010 05:33 PM PDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The nation's largest pension fund on Monday changed its policy on investing in real estate to balance its socially responsible investment philosophy with its quest for profits.

The decision came after the California Public Employees Retirement System, which manages about $210 billion in assets, saw its real estate portfolio lose nearly half of its value from September 2008 to September 2009.

As of Friday, CalPERS' total real estate portfolio was worth about $14.8 billion.

Some of the biggest losses came from investments in real estate ventures whose financial success depended on pushing low-income residents out of rent-controlled housing.

The revised policy, adopted at a CalPERS board meeting Monday, says the fund will not participate in investment strategies that rely on eliminating rent-regulated housing or raising rents above regulated levels.

CalPERS is known for its influence on socially responsible investing. Earlier this year, it voted to remove the limit on the number of shareholder proposals it can issue to companies in its portfolio, a change that could boost its influence among publicly traded companies.

Monday's action by the nation's largest pension fund could encourage other large investors to adopt similar policies.

CalPERS has had a practice of trying to invest in projects that will help low-income tenants. But critics say the funds cannot make money off such investments unless tenants enjoying regulated rental rates are pushed out of their homes to make room for people who will pay more.

CalPERS wants to balance a socially responsible investment philosophy with the need to ensure adequate long-term returns for its pensioners.

"The intent is to prevent us from investing in those strategies that are not well intended and had tenant impacts that were unacceptable to staff," Laurie Weir, CalPERS' real estate portfolio manager, told the board. "We really are trying to prevent those tenant impacts that we have seen over the past year."

A real estate investment that went bust in New York last year prompted CalPERS to re-evaluate its approach to that aspect of its portfolio.

CalPERS lost $500 million in a failed investment in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in New York that displaced low-income residents. The California State Teachers' Retirement System lost $100 million in the same deal.

The policy change was prompted by both those real estate losses and the risk to CalPERS' reputation, said spokesman Brad Pacheco.

CalSTRS is also considering a policy that would ban investments in strategies that are intended to capitalize on displacement of low-income households, spokesman Ricardo Duran said in an interview.

"Public pension funds should not be used to evict working people from their housing," said Dean Preston, an advocate for the group Tenants Together.

Preston said about 1,500 residents were displaced from a property called Page Mill in East Palo Alto, Calif. CalPERS invested in that property and lost another $100 million.

"We think this decision is a milestone," Preston said after the meeting. "We hope that it makes it more difficult for investors making this type of investment to accomplish their goal."

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The Bastardisation of the "Social Contract" - part 1

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 02:55 AM PDT

Art Harun

In "The Social Contract - correcting the misconceptions", I have sought to explain what the social contract is all about.

I do not want to repeat what I had written before. However, I wish to revisit several salient points about the social contract.

Social contract is a legal theory or concept. It does not exist in reality. It is a branch of legal, social or even political philosophy. This theory seeks to explain or rationalise why we, human beings, would band together and form a State.

It also seeks to rationalise why we would then agree to surrender our liberty, freedom and the ability to do whatever we like to the State when we, the human beings, were all born free and by our nature do not like to be restricted and constrained.

The philosophers surmised that we do so because we by nature are social creatures. We do so because we want to live together as a society. Furthermore, we do so because the State promises us some benefits. In fact we expect the State to give us the benefits that we want. That is why we surrender or agree to surrender some of our freedom, liberty and free will to the State.

That is why, in theory, we do what we do.

However, it is not a one way or unilateral agreement. There is supposed to be an exchange of promises between us, the people, and the State. For example, we promise not to steal and if we steal we promise to abide by the law which would send us to prison. In return, the State promises to protect our property from being stolen by other people.

That is the social contract as a legal theory.

In reality, that social contract does not exist, in writing or otherwise.

Now, the social contract which is so much talked about in Malaysia is a bastardisation of the theory of the social contract. Why do I say so?

It is simple. The theory of social contract postulates an agreement between the people of a State and the State. However the social contract which is so well loved by some people in Malaysia is a supposed agreement between the respective leaders of the three major communities among themselves which happened prior to our independence.

That in itself is the hijacking of the theory of social contract.

Apparently, the three community leaders met to decide the whole future of Malaysia before and after independence. And what they had agreed would bind all of us till kingdom come.

Apparently too, the Malay leader was generous enough to confer citizenship to the non-Malays who were not qualified for citizenship.

The two non-Malay leaders, out of sheer gratitude to the Malays (who were represented by the said Malay leader) for doing so, agreed that the Malays should have "special rights." These special rights were then spelt out in the Federal Constitution.

This brings the oft-repeated argument that the Malays have sacrificed a lot in agreeing to "grant" citizenships to the non-Malays who were otherwise "not qualified" to gain one. Therefore the non-Malays should respect the Malay's special "rights".

Over the years, these special rights were apparently challenged by the non-Malays, and even by some Malays themselves. So, according to some people, this is unacceptable. This is unconstitutional. This constitutes a breach of the so called social contract.

What does history show us about this bastardised version of the social contract?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd), while debating our Independence Bill reported to the British Parliament:

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