How China will destroy your retirement

Below is an article by an American and spreading with the help of unthinking Singaporeans to show how bad China is. The fact is that our retirement has been destroyed by America in their subprime fiasco and the financial crisis they have created. Now they are pointing the finger at China. For goodness sake, stupid Asians and Singaporeans. Think, use your little numbskull before they expired. How China will destroy your retirement The Shanghai index just laid a horrible egg. Wall Street fainted and investors world-wide took to the hills. How could this happen? 1. Loan growth at China’s central bank fell by 80% in the last 30 days. 2. After a spate of frantic buying this spring, China has stopped stockpiling raw materials, which it bought for pennies on the dollar. The Baltic Dry Index has plunged 25% since late July. 3. The massive amounts of cash that Beijing has pumped into its economy has not been properly absorbed. It has hemorrhaged into speculation. That’s why, although profits for China companies are DOWN by 30%, the Shanghai index is UP 80%. Can you spell BUBBLE? 4. It’s not just stocks, either. The most expensive housing in the world is now in China. Yes, that is correct. The ratio of property prices to income is now SEVEN TIMES HIGHER in China than in the U.S. It looks like the Japanese land bubble in the ’80s, but with one billion people involved this time around. Can you spell CRASH? 5. On October 1, the China Communist Party holds the 60th anniversary of Mao’s Long March. Expect Beijing to Band Aid this Ponzi scheme together until October. But, as the last few days have shown, the lie cannot last much longer. WE HAVE 30 DAYS—TOPS. Urgent You Act I’m Dick Young and I am convinced that China’s Ponzi Scheme will not work for much longer. And when it crashes to the ground after October 1, look out, because Wall Street goes with it. Don’t bother looking for your retirement plans in the rubble. They’ll be pulverized. It does not have to be this way. Indeed, my subscribers have a different plan. We will be very busy over the next 30 days, but it is work that will set us up for life.

We have this great bull story in the media again

We are short of talents. Companies cannot find enough of accountants and finance professionals. And recently we even bragged so loudly that we are recruiting doctors and medical professionals in big numbers from all over the world. My take is that either our tertiary institutions were are sleeping and not producing enough qualified candidates to feed the needs of the economy, or that our graduates were of no talents and not good enough for the industry. So either we don't have the head counts or plenty of useless, half baked and unemployable graduates. So, the lack of local talent must be true. All the statistics and surveys say so. What are we going to do about it? Apply the instant tree formula and go and recruit from all over the world, including graduates from third world and universities ranked lower than our esteemed local universities. Why did I get this feeling that something is not right? How could world class universities not producing graduates that are considered as talents and graduates from less than world class universities are grabbed like hot properties, great talents? If our universities are producing non talents, then we might as well close them down and save the money. And forget about the 4th university.

Foreign or local workers not an issue

I am tempted to agree with Lim Swee Say that foreign worker local worker divide should not be an issue. It is productivity. We need productive workers to do the job well at the lowest cost. This is like white cat black cat, no issue. Just catch the mice. I must clarify here that when Deng Xiaoping said this, foreign and local workers was not an issue in China. He was talking about Chinese workers only. And I believe Swee Say would also have said that whatever, citizens must come first. In our context, we may also claim that we are different. We are small and cannot be isolated. We are immigrants from the start. So living on the entrepreneur skills and hard work of foreign workers should be a part of our secret formula to success. And lazy and less productive workers cannot get away with it. They may be citizens, so what? They have done NS, big sacrifice, so what? They need to be competitive and productive and be better and cheaper than the foreign workers if they want to be counted. We have to be real and not be bogged down by citizens and non citizens. This is the real world. Singaporeans must work as hard as the foreign workers. There are many schemes to help them to be productive and to earn better incomes. But if they do not want to buck up, it is their own fault. We are competing in an international environment when all barriers to entry have been removed. Every country is buying talent. Our non talents can go elsewhere and be foreign talents and be welcomed. The above is just for discussion. It is meant to be provocative, to stimulate thinking out of the box.

Public housing is affordable

HDB has reiterated its position that HDB flats are heavily subsidised and affordable. Let me for once agree that HDB flats are indeed affordable. The heavily subsidised part I will leave it to everyone to make their own conclusions. Now, did I say that HDB flats are affordable? I did not say it without reasons. HDB flats are indeed affordable to everyone. You just buy one according to your own financial position. But that is not all. As long as you have money you can buy a HDB flat. The only difference, don't quibble, not nitpick, is that the money you have will buy you a smaller flat as days go by. Still affordable, definitely, only getting less for what you pay for. And paying longer and longer. Actually the people buying public housing should be very contented to have a roof over their heads. Be grateful. That is what public housing is all about, affordable and cheap. If you want good and big, go and buy The Sail or something like that. Those buyers are not complaining and are happily paying for what they get, good value for money.

Landslide in Japan

The 21st Century seems to be a century of landslide victories for opposition political parties that have for years been seen as no hopers. Malaysia shook the ruling UMNO by delivering several states to the opposition, something so unbelieveable. UMNO, with all its machinery and state organisations and power, could just watch as the opposition chips away at their territories. Every by election seems to be an opportunity for the opposition to wrestle another constituency from UMNO. Last night we saw another landslide in Japan. After more than 50 years of domination in Japanese politics, the Japanese grew tired and disillusioned with the ruling party. The LDP seemed to be running out of tricks from its bag and was soundly trumped by the DPJ. The winning margin was unimaginable. And we are witnessing another historical event and a new beginning, and the end of LDP. If this is the trend to be, we will probably see a similar landslide here in the next GE. Many may sneer at such a thought or suggestion. The ruling party has been in power for so long, with all the right and highly qualified candidates, with all the machinery and achievements to show how good it has been. And the opposition is still unable to find the right candidates to make a little dent on this formidable machine. Who knows what will happen or what will come next. There are plenty of qualified and able Singaporeans waiting in the fringe for the moment that could change the course of our history. To get 80 good men and women to stand for a general election is not a difficult task when the time is ripe. The landslide may come earlier than expected. The seemingly uphill task may not be that impossible when the chips are down. Would we see a landslide in two years? I know that many are laughing at such a possibility. At this point in time, it seems clearly impossible, no way. Who knows?