The most significant cabinet change

The appointment of Heng Swee Kiat as the new Finance Minister is perhaps the most significant move by Hsien Loong to put the house in order. Too many things had happened in the banking and finance industry that were worst than the escape of Mas Selamat but not spoken and pretended that all is well. In fact all is not well in the banking and finance industry.

The unthinking embrace of derivatives as the business model for rapid growth to boost the dying stock market despite all the warning signs of a big derivative bubble waiting to collapse is not getting noticed by the people that should know how serious this could be to the banking industry. No one is taking heed and worse, plunging head long into this time bomb waiting to blow up. When it does, not only the whole banking and finance industry will be shaken, the whole economy will be affected and no one will get away unscathed by the ripple effect. It is like a weapon of mass destruction, to quote Warren Buffet, like the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead will be dead, the undead will be burnt and scarred for life.

The problems in the banking and finance industry are not limited to playing with fire and fraudulent products. When it was announced that we don’t have local talents to fill up the top management positions in the banking and finance industry, no one understood the seriousness of this development. How could a financial centre ended up with no financial talents? And the next big blurp, we will need another 30 years to develop our local talents for such positions. And everyone regard this statement as normal. What have we been doing all these years as a financial centre? Lost sheep not knowing what was happening?

And the frightening thing about these developments is that these are taken so lightly, as the new normal. No one sees anything wrong with it. No one sees any urgency about it. How did the local banking and finance industry degenerated to such an appalling state where there is a dearth of local talents? Wait a minute, this also means that the banking and finance industry is run and controlled by foreigners, not Singaporeans.  Does this ring a bell? Does anyone know how serious it is when the country’s banking and finance industry is in the hands of foreigners? Would they wait for the foreigners to pull the rug under our feet before they know how precarious this situation is?

Heng Swee Kiat has an enormous task to do, to reclaim the banking and finance industry to be run by Singaporeans, not by foreigners or new citizens. He better consults Koh Beng Seng and pull out the blue prints of Goh Keng Swee to rebuild our now non existence banking and finance industry. How can there be a banking and finance industry if it is controlled by foreigners?

If you take out the Wee family, take out Wee Ee Cheong, the whole banking industry is in the hands of foreigners. Is this a brilliant strategy or there is no strategy at all, no vision, no plans, let things happen, let the foreigners take control of our country, our banking and finance industry?

What do you think?