The Crash: What Went Wrong?
December 31, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Washington Post
How did the world’s markets come to the brink of collapse? Some say regulators failed. Others claim deregulation left them handcuffed. Who’s right? Both are. This is the story of how Washington didn’t catch up to Wall Street.
A decade ago, long before the financial calamity now sweeping the world, the federal government’s economic brain trust heard a clarion warning and declared in unison: You’re wrong.
The meeting of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets on an April day in 1998 brought together Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. — all Wall Street legends, all opponents to varying degrees of tighter regulation of the financial system that had earned them wealth and power.
Top Theme for ‘09: The Buck Stays on Top
December 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Tony Crescenzi
RealMoney.com Contributor
12/29/2008 12:50 PM EST
Having written a book on top-down investing (Investing From the Top Down), and given my penchant for macro-style themes, I am compiling a top-10 list of key top-down themes for 2009. Here is one of them:
The U.S. will retain its reserve currency status. This theme is paramount because it answers the question of our age: If the U.S. is backing its financial system, who is backing the U.S.? The question is critically important, because the U.S. needs massive amounts of money to finance its efforts to restore stability to its economy and its financial system. If the support exists, the effort will work. If not, financial and economic Armageddon.
Promises made, promises broken
December 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Since he arrived in Singapore three months ago, 21-year-old Bangladeshi Mohd Ruhul Amin has not worked a single day.
He has not been registered as a worker with the immigration authorities here and still does not have a work permit, without which he cannot work.
He said his employer, Tipper Corp, had been ignoring his pleas to apply for one.
Unpaid worker fears for well-being of family
December 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
When hiring agents came to his village in Madripur, a six-hour bus ride from Dhaka, they promised 29-year-old Riponksan Musharraf Khan a $1,000-a-month job in Singapore. That was a year ago.
Convinced by their promises and with dreams of becoming rich, the Bangladeshi road cleaner sold his land and his wife’s jewellery and borrowed $5,000 from moneylenders to raise the $9,000 agent’s fee.
His monthly pay of $650 at the time was barely enough to support his wife, two young children and elderly mother, as well as two younger siblings who were still at school.
No wages, no work, poor living conditions
December 30, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
It has been more than 30 years since Singapore first opened its doors to foreign unskilled workers.
Sadly, despite the generally good record of employers over the decades, there are cases of exploitation and abuse of foreign workers.
Just two weeks ago, 180 Bangladeshi workers found themselves in the lurch. Their employer, Tipper Corporation, later found out that their wages had not been paid by the sub-contractors.
TOC: A look back on things said in 2008
December 27, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
As the year comes to a close, we look back on some of the more memorable things that were said in 2008.
I am satisfied that the Ministry has taken the correct remedial and disciplinary action, and that the Minister and top management were not to blamed (sic) for what has happened.
We must admit our mistakes openly and honestly, put them right, and act against those who have been culpable. But the last thing we need is a witch-hunt which would damage and demoralise our intelligence and security agencies.
S’pore takes Madoff hit
December 18, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ESTHER FUNG
esther@mediacorp.com.sg
FOR the first time since the multi-billion-dollar Madoff fraud came to light, there are now indications of how badly investors in Singapore have been hit — some very badly.
Some high-net-worth customers here have placed US$45 million ($65.6 million) in a hedge-fund invested solely with New York trader Bernard Madoff, through a subsidiary of Great Eastern Holdings (GE).
Order to protect investors
December 18, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Associated Press, 17 Dec 2008
NEW YORK – A FEDERAL judge on Monday threw a lifesaver to investors who may have been duped in one of Wall Street’s biggest alleged frauds, saying they need the protection of a special government reserve fund set up to help investors at failed brokerage firms.
US District Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered that clients of Bernard Madoff’s private investment business seek relief under a federal statute created to rescue cheated investors.
He also ordered that business be liquidated under the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court and named attorney Irvin H. Picard as trustee to oversee that process.
FOMC Statement – 16 Dec 2008
December 17, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Release Date: December 16, 2008
For immediate release
The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 1/4 percent.
Since the Committee’s last meeting, labor market conditions have deteriorated, and the available data indicate that consumer spending, business investment, and industrial production have declined. Financial markets remain quite strained and credit conditions tight. Overall, the outlook for economic activity has weakened further.
Meanwhile, inflationary pressures have diminished appreciably. In light of the declines in the prices of energy and other commodities and the weaker prospects for economic activity, the Committee expects inflation to moderate further in coming quarters.
Danes pay hefty taxes to enjoy welfare system
December 17, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
ST letter by Clarissa Oon
THOUGH the Danes love their welfare system, it is not free of flaws.
Two downsides plague the system: the high cost of maintaining it and the labour shortage it has created.
Danes pay high taxes to enjoy their welfare state. A worker can pay anything between 43 and 63 per cent of his personal income – those who earn more, pay more.
Couple sue DBS Hong Kong
December 14, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
HONG KONG – TWO former Singapore residents have sued DBS Bank (Hong Kong) for selling them structured products linked to the now-collapsed United States investment bank Lehman Brothers.
The retired couple, Mr Stephen Tou Kwok Woon and his wife Wong Fung Chun, filed a writ on Monday against the bank in the High Court here.
HK investors invited to sue in U.S.: lawmaker
December 14, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
HONG KONG — Hong Kong investors who were allegedly mis-sold mini-bonds in the collapsed bank Lehman Brothers have been invited to mount an international lawsuit against the institutions involved, a lawmaker here said Friday.
James To, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party here, which is acting for most of a group of some 40,000 mini-bond holders in the city, said U.S. lawyers presented them a proposal for a legal action in a U.S. court. “The lawyers have presented us a very detailed proposal. Their proposed action will be to sue some of the U.S. institutions involved in the handling of the mini-bonds for a breach of duty according to American law,” To told AFP.
Ex-Nasdaq boss arrested
December 12, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
NEW YORK – BERNARD Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Street for decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a US$50 billion (S$74.7 billion) ‘Ponzi scheme’ in what may rank among the biggest fraud cases ever.
The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he launched in 1960. But he also ran a hedge fund that US prosecutors said racked up US$50 billion of fraudulent losses.
SEC Charges Bernard L. Madoff for Multi-Billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme
December 12, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2008-293
Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Bernard L. Madoff and his investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, with securities fraud for a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme that he perpetrated on advisory clients of his firm. The SEC is seeking emergency relief for investors, including an asset freeze and the appointment of a receiver for the firm.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Madoff yesterday informed two senior employees that his investment advisory business was a fraud. Madoff told these employees that he was “finished,” that he had “absolutely nothing,” that “it’s all just one big lie,” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme.” The senior employees understood him to be saying that he had for years been paying returns to certain investors out of the principal received from other, different investors. Madoff admitted in this conversation that the firm was insolvent and had been for years, and that he estimated the losses from this fraud were at least $50 billion.
Ex-presidents, premiers urge UN chief to intervene in Myanmar
December 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON (AFP) — More than 100 former government leaders wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday asking him to travel to military-ruled Myanmar to secure the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
The prominent figures behind the letter include ex-US presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-Australian premier John Howard, former French prime minister Lionel Jospin, former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and ex-Philippine leaders Fidel Ramos and Corazon Aquino.
Don’t judge wealth funds on bailouts: Singapore PM
December 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
SINGAPORE — The performance of Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds should not be judged solely on their recent bailouts of troubled global financial institutions, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Friday.
Late last year and early this year the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) injected billions of dollars into Swiss bank UBS as well as U.S. banking giant Citigroup. Meanwhile, the city-state’s Temasek Holdings pumped billions into the former U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch.
Singapore’s Lee Defends Performance of Temasek, GIC in Banks
December 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Shamim Adam and Chen Shiyin
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) — Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong defended the performance of the city’s state-owned investment companies after a plunge in the value of their stakes in Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and other global banks.
Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Temasek Holdings Pte, the nation’s two key investment companies that each manage more than $100 billion of assets, should be assessed on their overall portfolio returns instead of the performance of specific assets, he said.
Singapore Maneuvers In Response to Chee
December 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
by Garry Rodan
Posted December 5, 2008
Far Eastern Economic Review link
For Singapore, 2008 has been a bumper year for legal actions and decisions against the international media and political opponents of the ruling People’s Action Party, underlining the government’s resolve to keep political comment and expression within tight limits. Yet in his August National Day Rally Speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also announced a watering down of restrictions on political uses of electronic media and outdoor protest rallies. “Our rules governing politics must also keep up to date,” Mr. Lee explained.
While these may seem like divergent patterns, political change around the edges has long been a feature of the PAP’s approach to preserving the political system’s fundamentals. PAP leaders would not likely dispute that. More difficult for them to concede is the extent to which PAP political battles and system tinkering are shaped by the strategies of Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan. Mr. Chee may have been neutralized as an electoral force, but he exerts a growing influence on the political agenda of the PAP.
Lawyer questions different treatment
December 10, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Law not applied equally to richand poor in compounding ofoffences, says Subhas Anandan
Wednesday • December 10, 2008
Conrad raj
conrad@mediacorp.com.sg
CRIMINAL lawyer Subhas Anandan wonders if there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Writing in the latest issue of Probono, the official publication of the Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore (ACLS), Mr Anandan pointed to stark discrepancies in the treatment of compounding of offences.
Lift ban on political films
December 2, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
A GOVERNMENT-appointed council has recommended that a law banning party political films be repealed – but in stages.
This was a key thrust of the final report submitted by the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) to the Government on Tuesday.
