India, where are you going?

India is the next emerging superpower, and deeply entrenched as the number one regional power in the Indian Ocean, unchallenged. It is so disheartening to hear the elation and rejoicing in New Delhi that India was the only country mentioned by the Empire as a crony in its return to the Asia Pacific region. India may now hope to be assigned a more important role by the Emperor.

In this celebration mood, India has even forgotten that the French is claiming to be a power in the Indian Ocean. India would now have to share the Indian Ocean with the French. The Brits would not be too far behind in the return to the East. Welcome Sahib, to the East India Company.

If India is aspiring to be a super power on its own steam, it should rightly stand as tall as the US and not acting as a side kick in the Empire’s scheme of things. And India must not forget that all the cronies of the Empire would have to bloody their hands if they want to remain as a faithful and loyalty poodle. And Afghanistan is waiting for grateful Indian troops to play its role as a willing partner to the killings of the Afghans, and who knows where else later.

Welcome to the dark side, the Emperor said. India should not regret the great opportunity offered. Be very grateful and honoured.

Chew Sutat – The importance of retail investors

Finally a sensible voice from the SGX spoke. A stock market without retail investors is like a bankrupt with no cash. The retail investors provide the life supporting liquidity in a stock market. Getting rid of retail investors is as good as saying goodbye to the big funds and to the stock market. Someone must feed the big funds with profits, and this can only come from the retail investors. For the last decade or so, the big funds are happily sucking away the invested funds of the retail investors to a point that it is critically dangerous, that there will be no retail investors left to keep the market alive.

The pathetic state of the local stock market when the volume generated were mainly from machines and the funds must be telling unless the people in the know choose to put on their blinkers. The pathetic value of many stocks in the main board is another indicator that the market is in the intensive care ward and could go kaput any time.

What is seriously wrong with the market is obvious. It needs to provide a level playing field for big and small investors. The retail investors cannot be victims to unfair practices like trading against machines and computers. These must be removed if the market is not going to die a premature death.

Derivatives or instruments that are pure gambling chips that destroy the value of stocks or against the true value of stocks are also detrimental to the viability of a stock exchange. When healthy companies could helplessly see their stocks being sold down indiscriminately because the funds bid them down through a complex web of derivatives with no regards to the sound fundamental of stocks, it is a very destructive process that must be stopped to save the stocks and markets. When good companies cannot grow the value of their stocks in the market, there is no reason for them to continue listing in the market. Similarly, retail investors cannot continue to plough their money into good stocks for long term investments only to be destroyed by derivative play.

The third point is the uncontrolled influx of unlimited number of stocks in a small market that could not swallow them. To make matters worst, many of the foreign stocks are fly by night stocks and investors have no real recourse to claim back their investments lost through foul play. The exchange has to act responsibility to protect investors and their money by not indiscriminately allowing questionable foreign stocks to be listed here.

Protecting the small retail investors is the key to a healthy and sustainable stock market. The small retail investors must not be left at the mercy of big funds and their destructive machines in an unlevel playing field. Looking at the long term, many serious flaws in the market system and mechanisms must be rectified or else the market is sure to head towards oblivion must quicker than we known. The truth cannot be hidden for too long. It is not only unhealthy, it is sick, very sick.

Would there be strong political will and a little wisdom to make the necessary changes to save the market?

Deep holes, weak leaders

This is the title of Thomas Friedman’s article in the ST today. Let me just do a précis of this article to make sense in the Singaporean context. I would leave out the irrelevant and may alter or substitute a word or phrase here and there to make it more interesting to read.

One of the most troubling features of today’s global economic crisis is the lack of political leadership anywhere. No one has the courage to tell people the truth. And the truth, alas, is that ‘five’ of the pillars of today’s global economy – Europe, America, China and the Arab world – have, each in their own way, squandered huge dividends they enjoyed in recent decades, and how they have to dig out of their respective holes with fewer resources, less time and, almost certainly, more pain.


There is no way out. But, as confronting these hard truths becomes unavoidable, I think we’re likely to see some wild, angry and destabilizing politics that could make the economic recovery even more difficult. Deep holes and weak leaders are a bad combination….


“Someone among the leaders must finally tell the people the truth: This fresh start can only be achieved with a radical first step,” he said….


But the leaders used their surpluses of power and wealth to ignore the United Nations’ Human Rights Report…Instead, they enriched a small slice of their populations and distracted the rest with shiny objects….


“To its credit, it used its huge export dividend to build 21st century infrastructure and to educate its people, creating a rich upper middle class. But the current leadership has not used this surging economic growth to also introduce gradual political reform. Corruption is as bad as ever, institutionalised transparency and the rule of law remain weak and consensual politics nonexistent. If growth slows and incomes widen further, more and more steam will build up in the system with no outlet, which is surely one reason that the country will reach ‘a critical stage.’


So for these countries, in different ways, these have been the years the locusts ate. Getting healthy again will be wrenching for all of us. At a minimum, it would need a sensible plan to fix the economy – which is what people want most and many in the business would surely support it. The country cannot wait until 2016 to do serious policy changes again.

Dr Lim Hock Siew, on the wrong side of history

A man of principle, detained without trial under the ISA for leftist political belief, passed away on 4 June 12 at the age of 82. He could have walked out of prison earlier if he just said he would denounce the use of force to overthrow the govt. He refused on the ground that his detention was unjustified and chose to stand by his principle. He said,

"I am not interested in saving Lee Kuan Yew’s face. This is not a question of pride but of principle. My detention is completely unjustifiable and I will not lift a single finger to help Lee Kuan Yew to justify the unjustifiable. In the light of what you say, is it not very clear that I have lost my freedom all these long and bitter years just to save Lee Kuan Yew’s face? Therefore the PAP regime’s allegation that I am a security risk is a sham cover and a facade to detain me unjustifiably for over nine years."

Dr Lim was also a founding member of the PAP but broke away to join another party, the Barisan Socialist.

A dirty house

When the house is dirty, the cockroaches, ants and flies will make it their homes. They will infest a dirty house to run riots in every nick and corner. They will become irritants to the owners. The owners can start spraying them and see their dead carcasses littering everywhere. But they will not go away. More will return to occupy the dirty house.

A more effective way is to clean the house, put it in order. Get rid of bad habits, dirty habits, disorders, and impose strict discipline and good behavior. When a house is in order, when a house is clean and not shitty, the roaches, rats, flies and ants will find it unsuitable or inhospitable to stay. They will go away naturally and will not reappear.

Buying insecticide spray, swaps, rat poison, roach traps, is only a temporary solution. The real and long lasting solution is to keep the house clean. And gluttony, eating too much and dropping crumbs everywhere, too much unfinished and unable to consume food, too will cause a house to become unhealthy and smelly. That’s when the irritating pests will return to haunt the owner.

Keep the house clean and in good order. And don’t anyhow bring in fair weather friends who are only interested in sponging and feasting in the house and with one foot outside, ready to scoot when the buffet is gone.