11/06/2008

AVA for financial products

I have held back this post for a few days. Now I read that Andy Ho is also thinking along the same line. Yes we need an agency to police financial products. Apparently and already confirmed, more needs to be done to ensure that financial products, derivatives etc are safe for consumption just like what AVA is doing for food and edible stuff. There is no running away from this. We need an AVA equivalent for the financial industry as a safeguard to protect the vulnerable from the highly technical and financially clever products that could be toxic and dangerous for the public. Let’s set up a watchdog quickly before more lethal products are being designed by the financial wizards to be sold to the gullible. Andy Ho lamented that there was lack of regulations in the financial industry. Actually there are plenty, targetted at the small thieves, the front line staff. These people are watched like a hawk, made to undergo a lot of courses, and sign a lot of documents. But they forgot that the real thieves, the big thieves, are the big boys. These are the ones that designed and pushed out the foul products. And they got away with murder while the little boys got roasted. Just a couple of days I was calling for the setting up of an Ethics Committee. Now I am calling for the setting up of another watchdog organization. I know that nothing will be done to all these calls. But it is still necessary to kpkb knowing very well that no one wants to know the truth.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The one who can best protect you is yourself. As long as you delegate that responsibility to someone else, there is always the risk that person will not act in your best interests. That person can be someone close to you like your spouse, or even your siblings or parents. We are already so regulated. We don't need more regulation. If those goondoo investors of High Notes and minibonds followed one fundamental rule, they would not find themselves in their current predicament. That rule is the same rule legendary investor Wareen Buffett lives by. "Never invest in something you do not understand". 'Nuff said.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

provided everyone is a talent, well informed and knowledgeable.

in the case of flawed products like the minibonds, even super talents will have trouble figuring it out and only find out a bit too late.

Anonymous said...

If you have trouble figuring it out, then err on the side of caution. Don't touch it even with a fifty feet pole. That is a basic human instinct. You do not need to be a talent to know not to touch a flame with your bare hands. Same argument applies here.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

good advice. with so many food products that are probably contaminated, better don't eat if you are not sure. mind you, all the fertilisers and preservatives going into your food, throughout the food processing chain are toxic.

be sure and safe. don't eat.

Anonymous said...

Plastic containers, ahhh, they have been saying it is safe, but it appears that it is not so. The bad part of the equation is never revealed because money will take care of that. So, we merrily and happily believe in what the experts say.

Eat you die, don't eat you also die. Do we have a choice?