I know people say why didn’t you help the households more directly. But the right way to help people now is not to give them vouchers or coupons to spend, but to help them keep their jobs, and this is where the emphasis of the Budget was…
—-
If you jump up and down and you want to break even and make money every quarter, you will not be able to have a sensible policy. You will end up not protecting your value, you cannot discuss Citigroup as Citigroup.
PM Lee on help for S’poreans and GIC investments
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
TW HAS PROVEN the positive effect of Consumer Vouchers.
I urge sg to do the same. Call it another name also can.
Case in point, Job Credit or some may call it Wage Subsidy for employers.
Whether it is the right way or the other way,
giving consumer vouchers WILL boost spending.
PERIOD.
by the by, where is M?
selamat malam hari ini.
Questions :
1. where is ….. not lah, I mean who knows the economy? As in , who knew it would be like this today? Now, who knows when will economy recover as in for sure? And are forecasts continually being adjusted with hindsight? So, what is foresight? So, who knows the economy? Depend on world economy? so, with time and more info is available, forecasts have been adjusted. surprise surprise? who knows what would happen in 20 years? And does this not say something?
more to come……watch this space.
S$100 billion gone by GIC and Temasek and he brush it aside. No accountability and transparency at all.
None of the PAP MPs grill the government hard on this issue. This shows the danger of one-party politics, herd instinct and fear among Singaporeans.
Mr PM,
I dont think anyone believes that you need to make money every qtr, not even Warren Buffet can do that!
There has been rather idiotic buys e.g. ABC learning, and myopic buys e.g. Shin Corp..and more others..There has been numerous warnings about the market prospects, and about falling knives..but you still charge ahead like the Light Brigade.
Beside the loss issue, you havent been completely transparent and accountable for the losses in the town councils too. Nobody expects them to be gambling too.
we are not part of the problem, we are singaporeans.
quote from CNA : “…Mr lee said: “Everyday we see bad news, another 50 here, another 100 there, and such and such job cuts. After a while, even if you were not depressed, we become depressed. “There are things happening which are positive, there are things which will turn good in time, there are things in the pipeline; the IR (integrated resort) is coming along, two IRs are both coming along. Every time I drive past the Marina, I watch to see whether another level has come up or not and it has nearly reach the top now.” ”
Rather than rolling up his sleeves and suffer with the rest of the nation by abandoning his million dollar salary, he simply chooses the easy way out by expounding positivity, and worst with an elitist twist.
Oh sure, I will definitely be positive if I have more than 3 million dollars salary and be chauffer driven past IR in a big black merc.
what utter rubbish again…for once i prefer him MIA! less frustration!
Ok. yes, your investment return in the passed 20 years has been very good. But losing a big chunk of it in a short span of 8 months is rather hard to accept.
The usual excuses was that others were losing big also and its all external factors. Then, please don’t always claim that u pple are the best that we can bargain for.
Man, i am so sick of seeing all this brushing aside and i guess this will not be the last…
if the investment is lost in other areas, maybe the people won’t be so angry, but it is lost in hot areas that the Oracle of Omaha won’t even touch, what can you call that? “great foresight?”
4) kingrant on March 1st, 2009 11.20 pm
but, i do not feel how losses affect a mere mortal like me.
i feel that many feel the same.
how does these losses , if real, affect mere mortal?
i do not feel it affects me.
Hi , my name is Jobles.
I have a doubt.
Is it not said that there are companies that profit even in crisis?
So, are there investments which are good?
If investments gone into these good ones, then there would be no losses or less losses.
who is responsible for investment losses?
‘there are good times and bad times’. I would say if you could avoid bad decisions, there would be less bad times.
10) fill good nooos peeeper on March 2nd, 2009 10.25 am,
“but, i do not feel how losses affect a mere mortal like me”.
I suspect your sense of detachment is only an illusion. The amount of losses (if only we know the true extent), may be enough to fund 10 or more years of tax collection in Singapore. Surely, it will impact the common people.
The losses meant that there will be less monies for all kinds of public expenditure in the future, no opportunity for reduced taxes (likely the opposite), no possibility of handing it down to the next generation and the next generation of Singaporeans.
My concern is that the government is already going down the slippery road and there isn’t check and balance in place to ensure this is already the WORST that has happened.
(12) Yogi Bear,
“…there isn’t check and balance in place to ensure this is already the WORST that has happened.”
our President was ELECTED to check on them right?
He loyal to the people right or not?
so, how can say no check or balance?
13) fill good nooos peeeper,
Well, did the check and balance in the form of the elected president amount to anything in practice? If Nathan did anything at all in this regard, he must have done so secretly and very quietly.
It doesn’t help if systems only exist on paper (a sworn duty no less) but there is no intention to exercise them; the damage is already done.
“but” is meant to be a “when”
Singapore is going into trouble, the bad sign was the Merlion struck by the lightning on saturday evening, hope this not a bad omen.
I think nobody expects a qtr by qtr investment breakeven or all investments to be short term. The amount of $100billion is too astounding and this huge loss demands certain answers and accountability to the citizens.
17) Get Real
Unfortunately, the PAP doesn’t see itself as accountable to it’s citizens. I think they’ve demonstrated that to us time and time again. LKY once said that it was enough that GIC was only accountable to him. He didn’t go on to say that he was accountable to the citizens of Singapore.
I recall a statement that Khaw Boon Wan once made many years ago during the saga of the Infocomm Authority’s legal wrangles with Singtel. It had to do with compensation, that was according to IDA, incorrectly paid to Singtel. Anyhow, after the court had found in Singtel’s favour, KBW was asked who was responsible for the “oversight”. I believe his reply was something to the effect that “we cannot assign responsibility for the mistake. If we do that, then in future, no one will want to take on responsibility for future projects”.
My point here is that the PAP obviously feels that it is not answerable nor accountable to the citizens when things go wrong. But lo and behold the amount of praise that they inevitably heap upon themselves when by the fluke of chance, things go very much in their favour.
This, my fellow citizen, is the government that we unfortunately have and I fear, will have for many years to come.
18) Kim San on March 2nd, 2009 4.40 pm 17) Get Real
“Unfortunately, the PAP doesn’t see itself as accountable to it’s citizens.”
Whatever it is, as long as the majority can accept whatever is happening,
what can mere mortals like me do?
Its a collective effort, nation building. The people wants to accept this kinda system, then, its actually the people who should be accountable.
As to whether this kind of system is good or not, its not my perogative to comment.
18) Kim San on March 2nd, 2009 4.40 pm 17) Get Real
“Unfortunately, the PAP doesn’t see itself as accountable to it’s citizens.”
Whatever it is, as long as the majority can accept whatever is happening,
what can mere mortals like me do?
Its a collective effort, nation building. The people wants to accept this kinda system, then, its actually the people who should be accountable.
As to whether this kind of system is good or not, i am not at liberty to comment.
Good or bad leadership, its actually the People who voted who are responsible for their choice, without which no one can be in power to Execute ANY policies.
Every now and then, the people gets to volunteer to run for office and very few take up this national service. Every now and then, the People get to vote in AMK GRC, for instance. And the results are pretty much uniform for the last consecutive 40 odd years in a row, without any breaks. No break throughs by Alternatives. Thus, the people have no enough Alternatives to choose from.
And thus we can see who is really responsible. Its the PEOPLE, stoo.
and why is it a matter of only one or the other??? (help find jobs OR direct help)
can’t do both with the billions we have???
singaporeans are really trained too well to accept whatever rubbish they say.
Yeh, if it were your own money, you will also jump out from your own grave – whether you can jump up & down depends on the degree of your digust with the doings of the so called division one ministers or ex-ministers.
Every year we get the same solution – a few hundred dollars handout to offset gst – which by its very hand out act is an admission of the failed policies involving gst, erp, bus fee hike, etc…
That is all the government can do in addition to cheap talk and high profile hot air report repeatedly headlined in the local papers; how about sharing out part of the ministers’ and president’s thousands dollars a day angpows ?
I do not see what is the problem with not disclosing GIC accounts.
The people are ok with this since day 1.
why kick up a fuss now?
remember, you made the choice.
you accepted.
so, i fail to see why people are so fussy about GIC.
to me at least, the billions lost is merely on paper and does not affect me in way that i can feel it now. I wonder if all feel like me? People , pls, lets move on and close ranks and come together for our common destiny.
I appreciate all the goodies given to me. few hundred dollars man! i ok with this kind of thingie. I not worried about the many billions lost. afterall, now GIC is holding common shares even though no dividend. correct me if i am wrong.
like this is it not good? personal opinion is, such great time to buy even more billions worth of shares from citi. like this future even brighter.
i would just be happy with the goodies i am getting and not worry about the billions lost, on paper.
more good years and i continue to accept our great system.
Who knows what the economy will be like for sure for the next 6 months?
ok lah, i too cruel a question. so tough right?
ok, who knows for sure what the economy will be like in next 3 months?
I know, some of you may have strong gut feeling and confidence. No use. I want for sure answer.
Now, the interesting question of all time :
who knows how the economy will be like in the next 10 to 20 years?
what does this say?
Yes PM, Citigroup is only one investment. But what abt UBS?
That makes two big dogs in GIC’s portfolio.
And then add in Temasek’s Barclays and ML, that makes four.
Warren Buffett can say he made “dumb mistakes”. Will Ms Ho, Tony Tan and Ng Kok Song say the same? Or do they think hey smarter than Buffett.
And don’t forget the local MSM reported these investments in “Oh how smart TH/ GIC are”. And TH, GIC allowed themselves to be shown as smarter than Buffett.
So of course when things go so badly wrong within a yr of investments meant for 30-yrs, well GIC. TH and govmin fair game for criticism. After all one has disappeared, another is a zombie and the US is gunning for UBS.