Opposition politician JBJ dies
September 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Veteran opposition politician, Mr J.B. Jeyaretam, died of heart failure early on Tuesday morning. He was 82.
The pugnacious former head of the Workers’ Party, who recently formed the Reform Party, died at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, said his close friend and chairman of Mr Jeyaretnam’s new political party.
US House of Representatives rejects US$700b bailout bill
September 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives on Monday dramatically rejected a 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout, sending stocks crashing to their worst single day loss ever and deepening the US financial crisis.
As a palpable sense of fear ricocheted through Washington, President George W. Bush said he was “disappointed” that the bailout foundered, as Democrats accused Republican conservatives of killing the bill for ideological reasons.
Bailout plan rejected
September 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
# US lawmakers reject US$700 billion bailout plan
# Stocks plunge, investors rush to gold and govt bonds
# Citigroup to acquire Wachovia operations
# Fortis, Britain’s Bradford & Bingley partly nationalised
MM Lee on Navigating the new world order
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Asia’s role in the international security environment
LET ME start by saying how I see the world.
How does Singapore survive and prosper? Only if there’s international order, there’s peace and stability in the region and there’s growth instead of wars and conflicts. Why has the region grown in the last 50 years? Because there was an American umbrella that provided security.
Electricity rates up 21%
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ELECTRICITY bills for Singapore households will go up by about 21 per cent from Wednesday – the highest one-time increase in seven to eight years – due to higher oil prices.
With this latest tariff revision, households in three-room flats will see their utilities bills go up by $14. Families in five-room flats will pay about $23 more a month, on average, with the price of electricity going up from about 25 cents per kilowatt-hour to about 30 cents.
‘No high returns without risk’
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
THE current market turmoil may have hit some individual investors here, but SeniorMinister Goh Chok Tongremains confident of Singapore’s economy over the next two quarters.
“I know (individual) Singaporeans have been hurt; they have invested in Lehman Brothers mini-bonds, in High Notes … and more have been hurt investing in equities,” he said.
ST letter: Instances where ‘buyer beware’ is unfair
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST link
ST letter by Stanley Jeremiah
I REFER to Thursday’s letter by Mr Jag Kuo, ‘Ultimately, it’s buyer beware’. Mr Kuo makes several assumptions which may not be borne out by the facts.
He assumes that, because only ‘qualified advisers’ can sell these products, they must have had a reasonable basis for recommending these products.
ST letter: High Notes saga: DBS Bank won’t gain
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST link
ST letter by Janet Mohan
WE REFER to Mrs Rebecca Lee’s letter on Wednesday, (’High Notes saga: Tell us who gains, who loses out and why’), and wish to address her concerns here.
DBS High Notes 5 is a 5.5-year structured, credit-linked note designed for investors seeking enhanced yield by providing exposure to a ‘First to Default’ (FTD) basket of geographically diversified investment grade credits consisting of eight Reference Entities (RE). High Notes 5 is not a ‘low risk’ product; it was clearly highlighted that in the worst case scenario, the investor could lose the entire investment amount. The structure and risk of the product was documented in the Pricing Statement which we gave to all our customers when they made their investments in High Notes 5.
ST letter: Rethink buyer beware policy
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST link
ST letter by Sia Cheong Yew
THE saddest outcome for me during this period of financial market turmoil is not the collapse of the two venerable banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Nor do I have sympathy for those greedy investment bankers who never knew when enough was enough when easy money was rolling in.
They continued to push new derivative products on to the markets to ensure that their huge pay packets and annual bonuses would go on spiralling. Never mind that they did not quite understand what they were dealing in, much less their regulators, if the latter were indeed interested.
ST letter: High notes saga: Tell us who gains, who loses out and why
September 29, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST link
ST letter by Rebecca Lee (Mrs)
DBS financial advisers sold DBS High Notes 5 to investors like myself as ‘growth’ products without explaining the risk. I received a call from my relationship manager to say that my investment in DBS High Note 5 was affected by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and that, potentially, I will receive nothing in return for the investment.
My question was: How could I receive nothing when I bought a basket of eight banks? My relationship manager couldn’t explain and had to rope in three experts from DBS to walk us through the highly-structured product to understand that what was sold as a basket of risk wasn’t true.
Population grew to 4.84 million, boosted by strong non-resident growth
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s population hit 4.84 million in June this year, marking a 5.5 per cent increase from a year before. The figure is buoyed by an increasing number of foreigners in the country, boosted by strong economic growth over the past few years.
The number of non-residents grew by 19 per cent, while the resident population went up by a mere one per cent.
Uncle Sam’s $700+ Billion Toxic Securities Fund
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Introduction
By now, everyone reading this is well aware that the Bush Administration, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank are pushing Congress to quickly approve a gargantuan $700+ billion bailout plan, with the hope of saving large banks, investment firms and other financial institutions that are overloaded with troubled mortgage-related securities.
This is by far the largest financial rescue plan ever envisioned on the part of the government, and I would argue, by far the most risky – both in terms of the potential losses for American taxpayers, and in terms of the sweeping, unchallengeable powers it would grant to the government. I will have more to say about the latter in the pages that follow.
ST letter: Top dollar for star talent
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST letter by Syu Ying Kwok
ST link
WATCHING events unfold this week is like watching Halley’s Comet, a rare occurrence which is nerve-racking for those in the finance industry but also a great learning experience for all mankind.
While the world is gripped by fear of a global financial meltdown, United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has yanked the financial market from near death with a huge adrenalin injection by proposing a trillion-dollar rescue plan.
Prepare Workfare to cover jobless
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
With a slowdown looming, it’s time to link it to training too
By Chua Mui Hoong
SINCE the start of this year, about 262,000 people have claimed Workfare income supplements. The state has given out $272 million, which works out to an average of about $1,000 per claimant.
Amid global financial turmoil, and within Singapore declining real wages, a less rosy jobs outlook, talk of a technical recession and record-high inflation, there’s a distinct possibility that jobs will shrink or disappear, with wages eroded by loss of overtime pay, pay cuts, or entire jobs being lost.
Only 1 of 6 planned ERP gantries to be built
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Some charges in Chinatown-Shenton Way area to be cut
By Maria Almenoar
MOTORISTS got two pieces of good news yesterday.
One was that five of the six Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries slated to be set up in November will not be built. The other is that some ERP charges in the Shenton Way-Chinatown area will be reduced by up to $1.
AVA’s hunt for melamine
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
More than 1,000 food samples are slated for testing, and list is growing
By Grace Chua
FOR more than a week now, scientists at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority’s (AVA) laboratories have been working round the clock, testing more than 400 food samples for melamine.
To date, eight products have tested positive for the chemical, which can damage the kidneys when eaten in large enough amounts.
Population up a record 5.5%
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Biggest increase is among foreigners, the result of a buoyant economy
By Li Xueying
THAT feeling of a growing squeeze in shopping malls, MRT trains and hawker centres is now borne out by official figures.
Singapore’s population has shot up by a record 5.5 per cent to 4.84 million this June. It is the biggest annual spike since collection of such data began in 1871.
Police break up rally by anti-ISA activists
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
KUALA LUMPUR: A group of anti-ISA activists caused a bit of a commotion as they gathered near the Masjid Jamek mosque in Jalan Tun Perak here.
The group had originally wanted to distribute leaflets calling for the Internal Security Act to be abolished but when they tried to unfurl a banner opposite the mos-que, police moved in and broke them up. Police also confiscated their leaflets.
Molotov cocktails thrown into Teresa’s family home
September 28, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
KUALA LUMPUR: Two Molotov cocktails were thrown into the family home of Seputeh MP Teresa Kok in Taman Rainbow, Jalan Ipoh near here at 2.55am Saturday. No one was hurt in the incident.
A warning letter containing threatening words and vulgarities was also attached to one of the bottle’s which was left outside the house.
WaMu becomes biggest bank to fail in US history
September 27, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation’s largest banks — Washington Mutual Inc. — has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then sold the thrift’s banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion.
