18 years good enough to invest in stocks

The new ruling has just came out. 18 year olds can trade in the stock market. I don't use the word investing in stock markets. Stock markets used to be a place for long term investment. You put in some money and see them grow with the company. Not today. The stock market is like a casino or worst than a casino. The big players are manipulating the markets at will and investing in stocks is no longer like it was before. It is betting on a position every day, every hour and every second. I don't think it is the right thing for 18 year olds to be in this kind of stock market. We will turn into a nation of gamblers. is this the right way to go? At 18, the possibility of reckless trading is very high. And traders can easily be caught in bad positions and losses can accumulate into a mountain in no time. And the parents will end up bailing these kids out, that is if they are able to or can afford to.

Parliament is not kopitiam

Parliament is the nation's highest body where the ablest men and women gather to discuss serious national issues. There are important things to be raised in Parliament. There are important things to be raised only in kopitiams. One issue I thought would be important enough is the sale of core national assets. We have sold 3 power stations which I believe should be regarded as core assets or strategic assets. They were real things, with buildings, machinery and equipment sitting on the ground. They provided an essential service to the people. We have exchanged them for fiat currency. From the fiat currency we got, we probably have used it to buy other assets which recently have proven to be fleeting assets. Now the money is gone. The fleeting assets have diminished in value. Our 3 power stations also gone. The selling of core national assets must be seriously discussed in Parliament. If we do not need the money, there is no reason to sell such assets. Why trade our core and strategic assets for things that, well, have proven unworthy or worthless? Parliament must review such attempts to sell more national assets in the future and decide whether it is a good thing or a sensible thing to do. At this point in time it has been proven to be unwise. It is like selling Christmas Island. Once sold it is gone forever.

Good that NOL shares were hammered down

Yesterday there was this market rumour that NOL may be making cash calls and its shares were duly sold down. This is what investors should do when companies take the convenient way to demand cash from cash strap shareholders, in a very difficult time like this. I hope investors will continue to sell off companies making cash calls. And it is highly irresponsible for such companies to do so when some don't even need the money or have other sources of fund. What is happening? Are these companies so broke or they have lost their pants somewhere and needing the small shareholders to pay for their folly? Robbing poor Peter to pay Paul?

Growth for what and for who?

Eminnent professor of strategy at the Stephen M Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in the USA is questioning the growth fetishism in Singapore. She is calling for a reexamination of what all the fuzz is about. And it takes someone from the distance, not our world class academia, to discuss such an important matter. Perhaps our brilliant people are all busy making money the best they could for themselves. Dr Linda Lim is a Singaporean based in Ann Arbor. She could see from the distance of things that we cannot see from inside the fish tank. The wide income gap and the high cost of living, and the way we bet big with our national savings are all things that demands a serious relook before they get bad. Where is the debate or concern in this little paradise of super talents, demigods and immortals? Maybe they have more important preoccupations like licensing bicycles or chasing pieces of gold medals in sports, or chasing foreign talents. Should we be pondering over the distribution of wealth and how to spread it around more instead of asking the hardlanders to ever keep on tightening their belts, or to make them pay more as every increase is carefully calculated to be affordable but leaving them with nothing for tomorrow? The ST devoted one page of its paper to Dr Linda Lim Today with 3 separate articles on her and what she had said about our economic growth and strategy.

Just for the record

Monday, 09 March 2009 Se Young LeeDow Jones Newswires Singapore's foreign reserves fell to US$163.55 billion at the end of February from US$167.09 billion a month earlier and was lower than US$171.74 billion a year earlier, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said Monday. In Singapore dollar terms, the reserves were S$252.78 billion in February compared with S$252.57 billion in January and S$239.36 billion a year earlier, the central bank said on its Web site. I copy this from Singabloodypore.