One week to change the world

In one week, we are entering a brave new world. The Americans are now the biggest communist country, with its banks nationalised and the govt in control of many private enterprises. State intervention instead of letting the economy running along freely under capitalist system. Govt handouts and state welfare to help the poor. In one week, the G8 countries were bankrupted, practically. All resorting to printing more monies to aid their ailing economies and the banking systems. The G8 used to be known as a rich man's club, with the world's richest as members. Now the world's richest, in terms of liquidity available in the trillions, are not in the club. These include China, India and the Arab countries. The latter should form a new G group of countries where the real money is. G8 is history. The 'diseased' Sovereign Wealth Funds, SWFs, that were once shunned by the West and kept at arms length like lepers are now the knights in shining armour, welcome by their detractors to save their arses. SWFs are now in vogue, they are cool. They have the money. In one week, Capitalism dies. The excesses and the extremism of Capitalism dug its own grave and buried itself. In one week, all the financial wizards and all the whiz kids in New York are in debt, running risk of losing their jobs, and many have been exposed as simply con men and greedy crooks. In one week, George Bush's name will be engraved in stone in the Hall of Infamy as the US President that only knew how to spend money in starting wars but forgotten that there was an economy to look after. And he broke the banks. In one week, Europe and America went around begging for financial aid. In one week, America and Europe were lost in what they could do to save themselves from the financial mess they created. In one week, the world will no longer believe that the West knows what they are doing and should no longer be in a position to teach or tell the whole how to run their economies. In one week, the power equation of planet Earth shifted.

Singapore power tariffs higher than the US or France

This the heading of a letter to ST forum by Bruno Serrien. He is asking if the power provider has done enough or their best to protect consumers from paying disproportionately high power tariff when they don't have to. So far we have heard that the current formula to price power tariff is the most efficient and equitable. Really? Spot price of crude oil has fallen to below US$90 and our tariff are still based on pay forward future oil price of US$150! Bruno also pointed out that 80% of our electricity is generated by natural gas instead of oil. So why is the formula simply based on oil price? What portion or percentage is being computed with the natural gas element or is this totally not in the formula? We need more transparency in this and the full formula to understand how it works and affects us. Are there measures to work out the possibility of buying spot when the difference is too high? Can the supertalents explain, please.

Demanding justice and fair play

Tan Kin Lian has started the first movement to lead the normally obedient sheeples to fight for justice. His petition, signed by more than 1000 Singaporeans who lost money from minibonds and notes, is asking MAS to commence investigation into the way the products were sold and whether the sellers have done their due diligence. This stamp from the American financial crisis where the culprits are still enjoying their good life from the loot they have taken from the market. We need to bring those who have done scrappy works that led to people losing their savings to tasks. These should include agencies that were supposed to do the auditing and financial reports of products or companies. The latter refers to companies/agencies that were involved in bringing doubtful companies for listing in the stock exchange. They cannot just be let off simply. They are expected to do the ground work to ensure that the companies they have researched on and auditted are sound. The interest of the masses, the sheeples, must be protected.

The assumption of virtues

Can virtues be passed down or assumed by the inheritance? Can the new employees take credits for the great works of their predecessors? Whenever we discuss about the govt, often we hear comments that the govt has done a great job and we should be grateful to the govt. Who is the govt anyway? The incumbents are the govt but not the govt that brought us here today. Ok, a few of the oldies deserve all the accolades and we should not dismiss their good work. The govt is just a nomenclature, a term for a group of people running the country. And this group of people changes over time. The fault here is that the masses tend to get mixed up with the people of the past govt and the people of the present govt and regard them as synonymous. This is far from the truth. Even if the present people in the govt assume or presume that they have done great things, the people should not accept such assumptions or presumptions at face value. Look at each and every one of them and ask what each has done that deserves greatness like their predecessors. Greatness of the past leaders cannot be passed down or rubbed down to new leaders. They must earn their spurs. And if they have not done anything great, they should not carry that air of greatness around them. Joining the party, wearing that badge or being in the govt does not automatically entitle one to greatness. Simply ask, what have you done?

The goodness of obedience

The thoughts of what is happening in Thailand today, when protestors were fighting and shooting at the police must give a great sense of gratitude that we are such a peaceful country with peace loving people. Those who still have doubts about the cancelling of the cycling event in East Coast Parkway should better appreciate the foresight of the decision. You need talents who can look a few steps ahead to make wise decisions. We did have people fighting the police in the past. But those were the days gone by. Today we have a different set of people that believe in the goodness of obedience. It is a diffferent kind of obedience, not those of a dictatorial regime, an authoritarian state or an archaic kingdom. Those were imposed obedience through the use of force or ignorance of the populace. That is one of the reason why some old feudal states chose to keep their people under educated. For with education comes knowledge and a questioning mind. The more education the people received, the more they can see falsehood from the truth and the lower will be their tolerance for inepts and bad policies. This is a little contradiction which requires a little explanation. We have a very high level of literacy in our people. Many are highly educated. But this does not bring about disobedience. In fact the people become more obedient than before. Thanks to several good men and their wise policies that brought us so far. And the people are grateful to the point that they will stand up to defend the govt against any critics. Critics are frown upon and set upon especially in the cyberspace. The kind of obedience among Singaporeans have been carefully cultivated through young and has become second nature to them. This is an achievement which many countries could not do. I cringe when I heard educators talking about teaching the students to learn critical thinking. Raising literacy in an orderly society is an achievement that many failed to appreciate. For that, our govt should receive a Nobel Price for Peace. More specifically, it should go to the good leadership. Not just anyone in the govt.

Wall Street's Perverse Pay Structure

In Ho Kwon Ping's commentary in the Today paper, he hit out at the perverse pay structure in Wall Street. How could people's daily wages be in the millions, in US$?!!! It was lunacy for many years over. And everyone was praising the great reward system and the great talents that deserved to be paid that way. No qualms, no guilt, only envy. The Wall Street model was actually our ideal model, the model that we modelled ourselves and wanted to be. It had caused a lot of grief among our supertalents when comparing the pittance they were getting with their peers in talents in Wall Street. Now that the truth is out, when talents were actually cheats, maybe we should come down to earth and look at reality against lunacy. Maybe our supertalents will now find themselves happier, that what happened in Wall Streets was a great hallucination that is turning into a nightmare. Ho Kwon Ping should shout louder, time to change the reward system and pay people their worth as human beans, and not lunatics.

Where is the stock market heading...

Oblivion! That is where our stock market is heading. And this is not due to the current financial meltdown across the world. There are just too many inherent weaknesses in the system that spells one way, doom. We were building a financial centre, a really huge one to befit our ambition, but relying on the foreign funds to come in and prop it up. For our own market, including funds and investors, is just too small. The over reliance on foreign funds and fund managers means that they can push it sky high and let it drop like a coconut when they decide to pull out. And they are just doing that right now. The next problem related to this wild ambition is the padding of the stock markets with as many stocks as they can grab hold of, and many were simply junk stocks. To make things worst, derivatives upon derivatives were created almost daily which means that the market is over diluted. Every dollar is spread too thin. As long as the foreign tap is open, and the funds keep flowing in, it looks sustainable. The commission structure that favours funds and house trading is a killer to the small traders. When big boys trade without having to pay commission except for a small clearing fee, how could small investors survive when they steamroll their way over them? Then there is the new game of short selling. Small investors normally trade one way. Investing for the long term and and normally long in the market. And the big boys just shorted them out, all the way. The more ruthless is the shorting, the greater the profit for the big boys. Where would all this lead to? The death of small investors. Small investors are being driven to extinction. All their money gone in a game with a loaded dice. Their money were also gone when IPOs after IPOs were listed and subsequently all melted away. The billions that were sucked out from the stock market are hundreds or thousands of times the fees that the SGX collected from the listing companies. What we have is a stock market that is not only leaking, but with a hole as big as a big longkang. Unless the whole system is restructured, fast, it will only head one way, for sure. The big volume of daily trading is only an illusion. The quantity of stocks is also an illusion. Many of the penny stocks are waiting to fold up. Just shell companies in a way. And the big stocks are also not spared from a system that allows shorting the stocks down, with no regards to their value and business.