Latest: NUS student dies. (Straits Times)
Excerpts from the Straits Times, “GIC bought too early”:
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, he said the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) had bought ‘too early’ into global banks such as Citigroup and UBS , which were both hammered by toxic assets.
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He said there would be ‘no purpose’ in holding an election in Singapore before 2011, but the timing of a poll will depend on the health of the global economy.
Read the full report here.
Also: MM Lee warns Singapore’s GDP could shrink by 8% this year. (CNA)
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as Minister Mentor and Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar and he can ensure that he has at least another two years in the Appointments.
Aren’t there state laws for specifying how regular elections should be held?
“He said there would be ‘no purpose’ in holding an election in Singapore before 2011, but the timing of a poll will depend on the health of the global economy.”
—another smoke screen tactic, and when the economy worsens by this year, which most likely it will, snap elections will be held and opp parties will be caught unprepared.
No purpose ?
If turn out to be smokescreen, will he say
“It’s politics. What to do, it’s happened.” ?
If there is no purpose, why the government is wasting time, money and effort to do the groundwork activities of election ? Or the old man getting senile again ?
The cunning old fox has its both way of his remark. He has leeway to view his remark as a opinion while at the same time as gospel truth. Either way, he escape just like he escape with loss of billions unaccounted for.
So ignore the fox because he says there is no purpose, and yet if there is election, will he says that it is just entirely his own opinion, not the government. And if there is no election this year, will he say that he is credible and truthful as statesman ?
And since the oldman says there is no purpose, can the opp party bring the government to accountability on why even in this bad time, the government is wasting ample tax-money and countless effort to prepare for election when there is no pending election ?
Rejoice!
When he said entering “golden period”, economy collapsed.
So when he says “-10% growth”, economy will fly. So go buy STI index and property.
This is called misdirection – to throw opposition off guard. “No purpose in holding election before 2011″ means the GE is imminent.
On the economy doing much worse that the yet again revised forecast of -2% to -5%, what took the experts at MTI/MoF so long? The signs were already all there a few months ago. In fact, I already said so here more than a month ago – post #7 in the link below:
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/01/economic-growth-fell-well-below-expectations/
* * * * * * *
/// 7) T on January 23rd, 2009 4.43 pm
Looks like the perfect storm is brewing for the Singapore economy. The economists at the MAS/MTI, even if they are cognizant, are unlikely to put up a realistic forecast for fear of panicking the people. The private sector economists are too polite or too kiasu to go against the official forecast.
Let me, a non-economist, cast the first stone and stone the first cast-in-stone forecast.
The composition of Singapore’s GDP (2007) are as follows:
Manufacturing 23.7%
Financial & Biz Services 24.6%
Wholesale & Retail Trade 16.0%
These 3 sectors alone account for some 64.3% of Singapore’s economy.
Given the global financial tsunami and contraction in trade, it is realistic to assume a contraction of 15% in these sectors, which means GDP shrinking by 9.6%. Assuming a more conservative contraction of 10% for the 3 sectors, GDP will shrink by 6.4%.
So, my quick and dirty forecast for Singapore’s 2009 GDP growth – a decline of 6.4% to 9.6%. Let’s take the mid point — minus 8.0% GDP growth for 2009.
And the official MTI forecasters are still mucking around -2% to +1% growth for 2009.
You heard it here first – from a non-economist.
20 January, 2009 15:59
P/S – the above was written before the government revised its forecast (within 3 weeks of the previous one) to -2% to -5%.
I think they are still pussyfooting with their forecasts – my amateurish forecast is -8% or worse. ///
No purpose? The sole purpose is for PM to take the GE opportunity and trim his Cabinet size lah!
At least 3 ministries should have a reduction in office-holder staff strength. No more Minister, Second Minister, MOS and Parl Sec at any one ministry!
How many Ministers do we need in PMO?
Cut. cut, cut!!!
The news are getting complicating day by day but even if one does not believe the oblique reporting, certain hurtful truths can still be implied:
1) New team has run out of ideas to solve the economic woes and they need a senior stateman to come on stage again, while their one and only hopeless hope they have in the IRs are being built. Gambling in the 24 hr casinos can only serve as a distraction with possible disastrous consequences and unknown to the first division team, gambling will place a curse to the future generations
2) Ground sweetening is on – retirement of Madam Ho, and soon a new president, and perhaps a pay cut of all political appointment holders
3) Snap purposely elections can still be held between now and 2011 if the crunch mentality of the masses can be reinstated with daily scarry reports of job losses, and new jobs availability. The papers are doing such a good job that the emperor seems not to be naked once a while.
Without Lee Kuan Yew, there will be no Singapore, or Spore is just an undeveloped island.
What is the purpose in the interview. We know it is every which way but lose for us, only leaves more questions and no answers at the end of the day.
Whether there is purpose or no purpose for the MM.
THERE IS DEFINITELY A PURPOSE FOR ALL OPPOSITION PARTIES
TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO WIN AS MANY SEATS AS POSSIBLE!
So, be prepared at all times. Never let your guards down!
Look at his face, so old already, but still so persistent … sigh, why cant he just let go and spend the rest of his life quietly (so the rest of us can have better life too) ?
Purpose or no purpose, is MM Lee even relevant today ? He is just one senile old fool that have taken Singaporean for granted and for a ride. Is he building Singapore as nation to benefit and enrich himself and his family as Singapore INC, or really care for Singaporean ? How is he different from Chen ShuiBian or Suharto ? One rules for him and the government, and another set of rules for the layman.
He lives his time, and his deed expose, and absolute power really corrupts. The power to gamble big on Singapore reserves and to lose the large amount of it, and pretend nothing seriously happen to Singapore. Pathetic.
Why should Singapores ever want to believe him again after he failed to deliver his end of the bargain of a good life and secured retirement in return for keeping them in power ? While they and their cronies are enjoying luxurious lives, ordinary Singaporeans are struggling.
‘no purpose’ in holding an election in Singapore before 2011, but the timing of a poll will depend on the health of the global economy……..does this mean if health of the global economy worsen or turn better and before 2011….there could be a poll???
Let me read between his sentence that it implies there will be election before 2011 but do not speculate any “purpose” behind such early election.
Guys, remember wat this old man said last time….he also very sure Singapore won’t be hit by this global economy dwnturn!!!
Nobody will believe wat he said now…..he is just there to support his son and make sure nobody bully him…
One can see that this man had a purpose when he became a politician in the early years. As his story unfolds, his lust for power overcame the desire for
greatness.
And from what history teaches us, it is the ending that matters the most.
And what I see now is a oldman who cuts a pitiable figure.
It’s the PM who will call the election. Who’s the PM here?
The father or the son?
If he father wants to act like PM, can he just throw away the
facade of his son being PM and assume the position
instead of paying his son S$3 mil + just to folowing his orders.
So who’s in charge ?
and who are those still drawing big fat pay – no wonder one minister in charge of unions have to make the subtle directive not to retrench
to be effective and multitask as in the private sectors, as least half the ministers have to go otherwise why do they bench mark their salaries? – like managing a table tennis associaiion or just simply granting gst offsets yearly with a few dollars
so what is new ?
No elections ? why ?- to maintain the purpose of clinging on to their easy earn millions when the masses may want TO BETTER PERFORMANCE OR BE OUT
Let all the old farts retire gracefully and engage the younger grads to fill in their place. Life is short and NO TIME to spend with loved ones. Enough is enough!
All earthly possessions will turn to dust as “dust unto dust”.
Mayan Calendar states End Times in 2012 and what Election are we talking now?
One shouldn’t care much about his words anyway. They hardly ever mean anything good for ordinary citizens. A good leader takes good care of his people & distributes wealth as equally as possible even in regards to himself. A terrible leader looks out for the good of himself at the expense of his people.
Have Hope and Faith in our journey on the rough road to prosperity. The Kuan Imm temple is full of devotees praying to the Goddess of Mercy. Everyone is seeking to Religion for solace !
hi, my name is thomas the train,
which other country leader invested in INTOXICATION to the same extent or beyond?
I just very curious to know what is their nationals’ reactivity to the issues, IF sama sama happened to them. i have a feeling what would already have happened, but am not at liberty to comment beyond this point. u can guess only. :)
GOING FORWARD,
HOW WOULD they be INVESTING?
How would their decisions be based on?
For long term investmenting, the fundamental check should be if companies receiving the investments are into TOXIC products at all. But could there be TRANSPARENCY on this aspect?
So, what is there to GUARANTEE the future based on this HINDSIGHT where they now know what we did not?
How to move on ? Does the people know what is going on?
Alternative, what are you doing? hallo?! anybody home? boleh or tak boleh?
So, was the risk management effective?
“When he said entering “golden period”, economy collapsed.”
What a way to leave a legacy. Success is not defined by how it begins but by how it ends.
To the MM there is no purpose in holding election before 2011,
and may I add, it is because he is aware of the poor sentiments on the ground.
I believe there is purpose in this crisis if it leads to significant changes in his PAP. And these changes consist of better talent being co-opted and a more inclusive form of governance.
We only have to look at the USA, ask ourselves if the world can be optimistic
in this crisis if G. Bush is still serving as President instead of Obama.
Politics should be a serious career.
To all politicians like the loyal opposition,
I feel that if i were you, and take my job seriously,
I would assume it would be next week for the sake of assuming so
that i will always be on my toes and put in effort everyday till that day and that is
considered putting your best effort in. Even if e is 2011, people who take their career seriously should not slack and only work hard when it is announced.
Given that no one is GUARANTEEing the date of the e, i urge all to prepare as much as possible , as soon as possible.
The effects of this crisis has not been seriously felt by the commoners yet, especially the white collar workers even though there have been some retrenchments. Based on some news, the worse is to come .
If I were them, i would definitely wanna hold a snap one as soon as is possible.
Imagine, having a renewed mandate for ANOTHER 5 long years? During this new period, whatever may be the crisis effect, who can decide to hold a snap one after this?
hope my point is understooded clearly. pardon my singlish.
I find it very interesting that he is such an immortal to the extent that he is not a bit shaken or feel regretful by his own annoucement of the -10% growth bad news. He even take this bad news in good stride to his and his party advantage by claiming they have saved enough to weather this thunder storms. Nothing was touch on those already retrenched and those going to be retrenched if economy go down by -10%. How are we going to save them. To him and his comrades who are earning millions, this recession does not hit them even a bit, so they still can ‘live happily ever after.
With the two appearances of the PM and MM lately, its a prelude sign to a snap election. Both bring the bad news and both want the people to choose them to bring in the good news later. PM is bidding his time to call snap election by looking at the height that the Marina Sands has reached. Once its reach its completion heights with couple of thousands of new jobs available, then it time for them to sing their swan song, you see we did the right thing to bring in the IR and you get jobs even during this recession.
God help PAP should the old man kick the bucket before the next GE.
If they delay too long because of poor sentiment, they might just lose the very keystone that holds the entire party together.
If you delete those four redundant words (“no purpose in holding”), you will understand what he really meant is “there would be an election in Singapore before 2011, but the timing of a poll will depend on the health of the global economy.”
Since the health of the global economy is getting worse by the day, you can safely assume that there will be a snap election during this coming December school holidays.
Calling an election before the end of this year will help PAP cut more “unrealised losses” in Parliamentary Seats to opposition parties.
#24
A good leader takes good care of his people & distributes wealth as equally as possible even in regards to himself. A terrible leader looks out for the good of himself at the expense of his people.
I totally agreed with you. Paying yourself 3 millions for a job and that amount of 3.0M can pay for all the G8 leader to be leader in the country.
I always believe that if you want to serve the country, don’t think of the money. If you want money, then go out and work as CEO of the company that can pay the same or high amount (I don’t mean they should work for free but a reasonably amount.)
The amount can use to help more people and by do so, people will know that they love people not money.
1) MM said that GIC had bought ‘too early’ into global banks such as Citigroup and UBS , which were both hammered by toxic assets.
As chairman of GIC, he must be the ONE who made the decision for such huge sums involved and must own up personally. No passing the buck down the chain of command. Similarly for his daughter-in-law who was the CEO of Temasek. Looks like they both share the same investment strategy between them.
2) Not only is the timing too early which implies the declining stock market. But both of them overlooked the problems residing within these FIs which is a more major reason for the drop in their share prices. Yet MM sits in the internatinal advisory board of Citibank.
3) MM said that GIC’s losses is 25% of fthe PEAK. GIC has been in the business for over 30 years and have enjoyed many cycles of bull markets. Its peak must be very much higher than the value one year ago. This statement adds credence to the Finance Minister of State’s slip of tongue of a loss of 41%. The old man is sneeky and not honest but people are no fools. Why is he so shy to say 41% if it is not that the losses are serious?
4) The FATHER now admits to a mistake (for being hasty). But his SON-BOSS at ASEAN a few days ago admitted to no fault and still maintained the decision was good as long term investments. Which version is correct. Are they therefore in loggerhead on accountability.
23) Mayan on March 5th, 2009 12.05 pm Mayan Calendar states End Times in 2012 and what Election are we talking now?
To be precise it is 21 Dec 2012..It won’t be the end of the world but some bad on a large scale
/// 37) SIMPLE on March 5th, 2009 4.18 pm
3) MM said that GIC’s losses is 25% of fthe PEAK. GIC has been in the business for over 30 years and have enjoyed many cycles of bull markets. Its peak must be very much higher than the value one year ago. This statement adds credence to the Finance Minister of State’s slip of tongue of a loss of 41%. The old man is sneeky and not honest but people are no fools. Why is he so shy to say 41% if it is not that the losses are serious? ///
Simple – you are wrong. The 41% quoted by Lim Hwee Hua referred to the decline in MSCI, which should be 42%,but she recalled wrongly as 41%. Check the Hansard – that session’s report is out already – near the end of the report.
Your argument is not logical is plain wrong. If the peak is much higher than one year ago, then 25% from that will be a good result. A simple example will make this clear.
Assuming the value one year ago was $280bn, and the peak valuation (anytime in the last 30 years) was $400bn. If the 25% decline was from $400bn, then the current value will be $300bn – still very respectable. I would be worried if the 25% decline was from one year ago. That means, the current value will be 0.75 x $280bn = $210bn.
A decline of 25% is a very credible and creditable performance by any fund manager’s standards. Most stock market in Asia has fallen by 40% to 50%, and many stocks, particularly in the financial sector in the US and Europe has fallen by 80% to 90%.
I think we should give credit where credit is due.
there’s no purpose to even listen to him…way past expiry date. period.
Watch out for Global Warming and the meltdown of the polar caps……islands will disappear as Temp. soars . Better to live on top of the Pinnacle 50th Storey now under construction at TG. Pagar.
So what IR we talking about?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,now IR stands for “IN RECESSION”
Best advice from http://www.sollog.com if only he knows but he already warned about the Wall St. crash in 2007
To Tew N S:
As if LKY can build the whole of Singapore along…
another silly commenter.
To T:
there was capital injection into GIC during those period and how could a 25% overall drop be a decent number?
Without the capital injection, the actual portfolio would have dived.
In any case, the citibank / UBS is bad investment that doesn’t add much return rate to GIC. even if they grow 10% per annum for the next 30 years, this investment would effectively be 5% in USD much less than (supposedly average return rate) of the past 30 years from GIC.
As to whether the 41% by the MOS was the loss by GIC or was a mistake on her part, I think we can decide ourselves. Is it likely that an MOS make such a mistake? It is like the subsequent Cabinet paper on why Ho Ching leave… how many of you really think it is because she chose to do so or forced to do so.
Enough said, the citibank investment just sucked. no doubts about it. The position is too big to exit now and there is a real risk of nationalisation.
Keep dreaming T.
They will have the elections to secure his position in tanjong pagar for another 5 years. If anything happpens before that his daughter in law moves in to take his place !!!!! Clever move, elections will surely take place before end of this year
selamat malam,
investment 101 :
1. its all about timing. if its not early, its late. what else is there?
what words of comfort would the stakeholders of other large investment houses be given when they invest in toxic?
where is msk? Money Sure Kool. :P
my wife says no need open my accounts as she TRUSTS me. i did something that betrayed her …….. ooops cannot say……censored…
i mean, like to hear their views as well. Afterall, the readers here welcome them. Why not join in the fun of public discourse?
the more the merrier what.
hallo, where are yous?
So many unnecessary personal attacks. TOC needs to mature more from this. This website is young and I believe it will. If there are no solutions, at least more constructive comments. Below are the quotes from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew that I read from the Business Times this morning. My feelings are completely different from some of the viewers here.
“If the second quarter shows further drop of another 30-40 per cent (in cargo handled by PSA), it might go down to minus 10 per cent”
“But Mr Lee expects Singapore to bounce back faster than London because the latter had expanded too fast.”
“Mr Lee said GIC bought into global banks UBS and Citigroup too early”
“GIC has a policy of not investing in Singapore, he said. It’s a reserve fund. When Singapore goes down, we want the fund to be abroad because the developed countries (and) the major developing countries cannot all go down with Singapore. So that puts us in a stronger position. We have no intention of changing that policy.”
When I read these comments from the Business Times on my way to work, I feel impressed that our founding father is telling the truth to his people. He admits the mistakes of buying banking shares too early. When Mr Lee said that negative 10% contraction in GDP is possible, he is painting a very realistic scenario and doesn’t mislead us.
I feel he is visionary too despite his age. He makes Singapore more diversified and more resistant by investing in overseas through GIC. This makes good sense for me. Lastly, which is my favourite point and that is we are going to recover faster than London and maybe even the United States. I had already mentioned the problems that the London and the United States faces in my previous comments in TOC. In short, the United States and London is relying on the printing press to support their ailing economy, transferring money from the competent to the incompetent. By apply economics 101 to it, it means hyper-inflation will occur in the future. The USD and pound will be doomed. China will be the next big power after the United States and before that Great Britain.
Of course I may not agree with what our founding father says but it is just unnecessary to make personal attacks at him. I contribute to the Google Discussion Forum previously and yes it is not perfect over there too but I really did learn something from the viewers there. You-tube discussion is educational at times too. I feel good and light-hearted after reading the papers on my way to work.
Best Regards.
Farming Rules!
You still have our respect Mr. LKY. Cos’ we always remember there will be no
Singapore without you.
OMG! Lee Kuan Yew looks terrible. I haven’t seen his face for awhile, and now – this is an OLD GUY! He looks ill.
What’s wrong with LKY/ Sick?
On the GIC- the singapore govt knew EXACTLY what they were doing and buying…
now- that the US dow is in the 6,000s, singapore govt can buy shares even cheaper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He ought to be preparing for retirement. I don’t intend to see him running at GE 2011. I am sure his son has bought him a nice place to retire in JB.