No poverty in Singapore?

The issue of poverty is a very sensitive one in one of the world’s richest city state with the highest percentage of millionaires. How can there be poverty when there are no beggars, or the poor here are better off than the poor elsewhere? How then does one define poverty or being poor? Theoretically, a person with a $1000 pm income could buy a 2 rm public flat. How can that be poor? The assumptions that after paying for the flat he would still have enough to get by, feed a family and children going to school. If this is the bottom line, the number of poor in Singapore must be very low indeed.

Professor Tommy Koh wrote a recent article stating that 30% of the population are poor. He is now embroiled in a debate with the MOE on the scale of poverty among students. Though the data quoted were complex and not everyone is in agreement, the bottom line is that how many are poor or living below the poverty line.

The next question is where is the poverty line? In Singapore there is no poverty line. So how can there be poor when there is no poverty line. Tiok. The next question, why is there no poverty line? The answer and I quote, ‘Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing had previously refused to define an official poverty line for fear of a "cliff effect" even though it is not known what this meant.’

If you choose to put on blinkers, the world is a tunnel. If one chooses to read only fairy tales, the world is so airy fairy. Are there people struggling to live on their small income and bordering on poverty or living below the poverty line? Deaf frogs, blind frogs or blinkered frogs, all have a different view on this issue.

Kopi Level - Red

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China providing an alternative to the failed American model stock market

‘China now gives investors an alternative to (the)manipulated HFT U.S. stock markets - www.examiner.com
 
On Nov. 17, China finalized the completion of their linking the Shanghai stock exchange with the Hong Kong exchange, creating a $4.2 trillion capital market that is also open to foreign investors. Debuting yesterday during Asian trading hours, this new and dynamic market will provide an alternative for American and other global traders to invest in a massive stock exchange that is free from the manipulation and High Frequency Trading (HFT) that occurs on U.S. exchanges, and will even exempt foreign investors from paying capital gains taxes….
 
In March of this year, financial author Michael Lewis laid a bombshell on the investment community when he published his book Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. In this fictional story based on real life factual data, Lewis showed how HFT was used so much by the primary brokers on Wall Street that it completely rigged the stock markets and allowed the siphoning off of hundreds of billions of dollars from investors simply because their machines saw trades before they happened, and bought or sold shares to follow trends.
 
It is perhaps ironic that for decades the perception has been that fraud, corruption, and manipulation has been projected upon Asia, and Asian markets that had limited regulation to protect investors. However, those days are quickly changing and with this new and transparent stock market merger between Shanghai and Hong Kong, opportunities now appear far greater and with much less risk of fraud overseas than they do in the U.S. and European based exchanges.’
 
The above article talked about the alternative stock market platform China is providing to the world of finance to overcome and to step away from the highly flawed, manipulated and failed American stock trading system. Fund managers would now have a more transparent and trusted stock exchange to invest their funds collected from innocent investors in. It is a fairer and less manipulated market than one dominated by high speed computers that made all the trading principles, fundamentals and methodology irrelevant, a joke. Traditional and conventional fund managers and retail traders have been robbed and massacred by the highly deceptive high speed trading programmes without knowing what really hit them, without knowing they have been cheated by them and the regulators of the exchanges.
 
High speed trading has violated and broken all the rules and regulations of stock exchanges for fair trading and have deceived investors that there was nothing wrong or illegal about their modus operandi. This does not mean that the govts, the US govt included, the regulators and the big fund managers did not know that the operations are illegal, criminal and fraudulent. They have been allowed to continue to operate and cheat other investors simply by virtue of their control over the regulators not to report or apprehend them for frauds and cheating. Everyone in the industry, the govt and regulators, are complicit in this crime while the investors are totally helpless about it except to lose their savings and fortunes. The wiser, or those who have lost everything, could only stand aside and watch in vain, not to participate or cannot afford to participate in the con game again.
 
China has seen through the deception and is offering genuine investors and fund managers a fairer and more transparent platform to invest and trade without being cheated by the computer traders. The American model is waiting to collapse just like the greenback, all built and propped up by sheer manipulation of the regulators/govt and the big computer operators.
 
Now that there is a reliable and fairer system to trade stocks, more fund managers are likely to shift their portfolio to the Shanghai/Hongkong market and leading to a quicker demise of the American model. The Singapore Exchange that is highly similar to the American model and would not be spared and would likely meet a similar ending once New York and London hit dirt at ground zero. Good riddance.
 
The end of the American model is near and a new and fairer financial centre in Shanghai/Hongkong would rise to take the place of New York/London and Tokyo. No more computer trading and no more manipulation of the stock market with impunity. There is new hope and a new world order at the horizon.

Kopi Level - Red

Curtain call for the Equity Market?

Stanchart is closing down its equity operation in Asia! More than 200 staff will be laid off. What does this mean? A major bank cannot make money or even losing money in the equity market? It must be. No banks would close down a profit making business.
Is this the beginning for more banks closing down their equity businesses? When banks are finding it tough to make profit in equity trading, what are the chances of the retail traders? You mean the retail traders are still around, still in business and trading with profits while the banks are closing shops? Does anyone want to know, bother to know, what is happening to the retail traders, to all the players including broking houses and remisiers in the equity business?
 
Who cares? It is no one’s business. The equity business can go bust, life goes on. Equity is only a small part of a bank’s business. Some banks even offer free or near to no commission for this service.
 
What about derivatives? Are derivatives related to the equity business and dependent on the existence of an equity market? Would the collapse of the equity market lead to the collapse of the derivative markets? Can the derivative market exist without the equity market or a dysfunctional or dormant equity market?
 
The immediate problem, maybe not a problem, is the loss of jobs in the Stanchart and maybe other banks following suit, to close down their equity business. Who would be the people laid off? Theoretically it would be those in the equity division. Or would a bank choose to lay off Singaporeans in other departments to save the jobs of foreigners in the equity division? To retain the foreigners from the equity division, a bank can transfer their foreign hires to other departments by getting rid of Singaporeans there. Possible? Likely?
 
What would be the case when banks start to close down their equity divisions? What would happen to the stock market when more banks take the path of Stanchart?

Kopi Level - Yellow

Be deaf frogs for once and do what you think is right

Funny for me to make this the title of my article. Singaporeans have been asking for change for the better in the last two decades more or less. Some may go to the extreme to say Singaporeans have been asking for change for the last 50 years. Let’s be reasonable and sensible and when things were right and good, we have to admit that they were good. And when things are not right and not good, we have to face them squarely. The pain and unhappiness did not happen over night nor did it happen 50 years ago. We were doing well, people were getting better off, life was good, everyone was upgrading, in education, in jobs, in income, homes and lifestyle.

The change started only two decades ago. We hit our golden age two decades ago and many things started to come back down to earth. Today the mantra is about downgrading, don’t aspire for university education, go for job retraining to become waiter or security guard. And if you are stubborn, and did not want to downgrade, go and become taxi drivers. Sell your homes and down grade to smaller homes or go to Batam, Bintan and JB if you cannot afford to live here. And pretend that cycling is good, car ownership is bad. So buy bicycles instead of buying cars. If cannot afford to eat in restaurants, hawker centres are just as good. You got to do that fast before the big boys buy them over and upgrade them to foodcourts.

My apologies to those doing exceptionally well and are sneering at this kind of loser commentaries. Yes there are many winners, but many more losers. And the losers are kpkbing for change. Actually change is easy if you only believe in yourself. Trust yourself, trust your own judgement and trust your own intellect, that what you see is real and you cannot run away unless you do something about.

It is time to be deaf frogs, act like deaf frogs, and do the right thing. Do what is right for you, for your children and grandchildren. It is as simple as that. Don’t expect the daft to do anything for you. You have to do what is right and ignore the noises around you.

Daft Sinkies must wake up and know what they want and do what is right. Start by being deaf frogs and act like deaf frogs. Or you would be boiled and turned into dead frogs.

Are Sinkies ready to be deaf frogs?

Kopi Level - Yellow