JP Morgan Chase is the best

Obama has about US$1m deposit in JP Morgan Chase. And he is so confident of the bank to praise it as one of the best managed bank in the US. If JP Morgan Chase is one of the best and losing US$2b due to a flawed risk management formula that they have relied on, how many lesser well managed American banks are waiting to implode? Or is this a case of American is best, even when they can fouled up to such an extent?

How many high net worth private investors are licking their wounds for their blind faith in American financial wizardry? How many Sinkies are still staunch believers while privately cursing at the money they have lost from listening to American bank advisers?

Come to think of it, like Obama said, what is US$2b? There are many very well run funds losing tens of billions or hundreds of billions and still crowing how well their funds are being managed. Losing US$2b is chicken feat, a great achievement really, seriously, honestly. Just don’t check my books. The American banking and financial system is the best. They have exported this great formula of success to the world. The last port of call is China, before curtain’s up.

Blessed are the believers.

Hougang - A very strange feeling

I got this gut feeling but not sure if everyone feels the same. There is Desmond Choo out there in the trenches at the front line fighting. And he is telling his superiors to leave him alone, to let him fight his own battle. Is he really that confident that he could win this fight without the big guns? Or is he worried that the big guns will do him more harm than good, like killed by friendly fire? In football parlance it is called scoring own goals.

Could the big guns instead of hitting the enemies, landed on their own troops. The first minister that spoke in the by election is Boon Wan. And he is drawing more fire from the critics. Who is next to speak and to draw more fire to himself and Desmond Choo?

This is the gut feel that is bothering me. Ministers used to lend their weight to a candidate to make the fight easier. What if the minister himself is unworthy or not seen as credible and anything he said could only make things worst? Can this be the case in Hougang? Is there any minister that could speak out and win more grounds for Desmond Choo instead of doing him in?

The whole ball game has changed. How could Desmond Choo depend on the big guns when the big guns are a suspect and could be better off to stay away from him?

Coming to terms of being a loser

This FT smashed his $1.5m limited edition Ferrari to prove how good he was in road racing, so it was reported. Though he killed three innocent people in the process, he hit the newsstand as a young and handsome, successful and rich foreign talent. And they even ogled at the wealth he left behind, a luxury BMW, multi million dollar condos. Who cares where the money comes from? It was reported that he was a very clever investor and made his own fortune. Though there were suggestions of mafia links and money laundering, these were not important in a city state that worshipped success in terms of money in the bank account. More of such successful talents would be welcomed to shore up the property prices and the COEs.

At the other end of the spectrum, there was this retiree lamenting and complaining about a hefty $83 bill he was served with at the Alexandra Hospital’s A&E department. He was also unhappy that the parking fee came to a whopping $6. How could the hospital charge $6 for parking.

The widening gap of the rich and famous living it up and the losers trying to make every dollar counts, no longer making cents count as cents were practically worthless, is raising its ugly head. Throw a few coins on the road no one will bother to pick them up. Throw it into a beggar’s hat and he would frown.

For the loser retirees, they have yet to come to terms with living in a first world city state among the rich and famous when a tip to a doorman could be $50 and to a nice waitress could be more than enough to pay for the hefty hospital bill with plenty of change left. If the retirees are living on their pensions, sorry lah, unless the pension is millions of dollars which some privileged yodas are getting.

A $100k COE is simply peanuts. A few million bucks for a private property is small change. Where did the money come from? The money seems to be floating everywhere, as abundant as hell money. The moral of the story, as told by the elite, live within your means and stop kpkb.

Wealth creator versus wealth manager

Ngiam Tong Dow has spoken of the need to have more wealth creators instead of wealth managers. One is creating wealth and the other is just managing the wealth. He made a false assumption that wealth managers are there to manage the wealth, ie to ensure that the wealth will be there or at least not depreciating. This assumption has proven to be drastically and painfully wrong if we look at the bigger picture especially those coming out from the US.

Many wealth managers are basically gamblers. They are just placing chips everywhere and hoping that there will be more winners than losers. If only their books were to be opened, many owners do not know the truth until the hole is too big to fill.

In reality, many wealth managers are actually wealth destroyers. Yes wealth destroyers. The first thing they do is to demand to be paid a ransom. And whether they deliver or not is not guaranteed. Most will try their best to do a good job. And when the chips are down, when the losses piled up, they take bigger bets and bigger bets, hoping that lady luck will smile on them for once. If not, just too bad. It is other people’s money on the table. They do not guarantee any winnings. The only thing that is guaranteed is the ransom that they will be paid.

Wealth creators, wealth managers and…wealth destroyers. The first is real. The latter two are interchangeable.

The temptation of Hougangkia

For more than 20 years, Hougang was like a step child, abandoned by the establishment and left to fend for themselves. They soldiered on under the leadership of Low Thia Kiang. They literally bit the bullet and accepted their fate, that for some reasons, they would be at the end of the queue for any goodies or handouts. They stood their ground. They were resolute and committed to what they believed in. Today, the pride of Hougangkia and their resoluteness are being tested.

A handsome man came along with a pushcart of abalone porridge or the best free porridge one could find. And he is yelling, this is only the appetizer. Yield to his master and he will rebuild Hougang and improve the lives of all Hougangkia. He is so confident that he could do a lot of good to the band of drifters. No one has yet to ask him where is the money coming from. Everyone, including the young man, takes it for granted that the money will be there to turn Hougang into a Disneyland.

Will the knees of Hougangkia turn soft to the temptation? Will the step child turn into the favoured child of the favourite concubine? That is what Hougang will become if the young man is elected as their representative in Parliament. Hougang will be the new favourite child and bestowed with all the sweets and candies in the candy shop. And Hougang will be represented in Parliament and their voice will be heard.