How FT restrictions hurt economy

And no the person saying it is not a millionaire minister or a PAP social media or msm media running dog. It’s an economist from an int’l bank.

All this talk of a recoverying economy (Example:”Singapore economy looks to rebound in 2021″and STI recovering to last yr’s highs, reminds me of what a Jap economist was saying late last yr: the FT restrictions was no good for the economy. (Skip the next 10 or so paras to “Hiromasa Matsuura …” if you know the facts and the PAP govt’s spin on the data.

First a recap of the restrictions.

Singapore tightened its labor rules last September. But there’s a problem. FTs make up nearly 40% of the labor force — far higher than in most of its neighbors.

Its citizens are also rapidly aging, meaning that by 2030, nearly a quarter will be 65 or older. If a graying Singapore accepts fewer foreign workers amid reduced interaction with the outside world, can it maintain economic growth?

According to the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore had 1,351,800 foreign workers as of June last yr, of which 14% were Employment Pass holders — professionals, managers and executives like — while another 14% were S Pass holders, or mid-level staff with skills. Almost all of the rest possessed a Work Permit, which includes laborers from lower-income countries engaging in construction and shipyard work as well as domestic helpers such as maids and nannies.

If it accepts fewer foreign workers amid reduced interaction with the outside world, can it maintain economic growth?

PM says no, saying the Government must convince the sheep S’poreans that the best way to protect livelihoods and families is to keep Singapore open for talent and business. He said, “If we just close ourselves up and send away the work pass holders, it will result in fewer jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans, and more hardship for our workers and their families.” He was speaking at the People’s Action Party (PAP) biennial conference on 8 November last yr.

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PM says he understands S’porean fears

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong acknowledged the worry S’poreans have about job competition coming from “foreign talents”.

He said he fully understood the pressures faced by S’poreans with regard to foreign work pass holders competing against Singaporeans for jobs in Singapore.

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But’s that not juz PAP propaganda.

Hiromasa Matsuura, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Bank, said there are two ways the restrictions could weigh on the economy.

“If a foreign worker’s role is not successfully replaced by a local, the growth of the total labor force would weaken, resulting in a negative impact on the economy,” Matsuura told Nikkei. The other, he said, is that a decline in foreign workers would mean a slowdown of total population growth, which would lead to shrinkage in consumption.

“If employers’ needs and local job seekers’ needs do not match, a tightening of foreign labor rules may not be very effective,” Matsuura stressed. “The replacement of foreigners with locals should take place in tandem with the growth of relevant human capital.”

More at https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Local-jobs-or-global-talent-Singapore-faces-COVID-era-conundrum

My take: The business reaction so far suggests there is no guarantee of more jobs for locals. Our education system that screwed up?

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*From September 2020, the minimum salary requirement for an Employment Pass applicant was raised to 4,500 Singapore dollars (us$3,300) a month from the previous SG$3,900. That followed an increase from SG$3,600 to SG$3,900 in May. In the financial sector specifically, the threshold was set even higher, at SG$5,000, from December. Visa applicants in senior positions must earn even more. Similarly, the minimum salary for the S Pass was also raised to SG$2,500 from October, compared with SG$2,400 previously. “You may of course adjust your EP or S Pass employees’ salaries upon renewal,” Manpower Minister Josephine Teo told employers in a Facebook post explaining the new requirements. Still, the message was clear: “But consider the missed opportunities of building up your local employment, and the strong government support to do so,” she said.

Akan datang: food inflation

Remember you heard it first here that food prices will be going up as we recovery from a recession

Food prices have surged in recent months. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reported a 6.5% increase in its food index in the 12 months to November. This was the largest monthly increase since July 2012. Cereal prices were almost 20% up on a year ago because of poor harvests and stockpiling because of the pandemic. Rice is in short supply due to poor harvests, stockpiling and bottlenecks.

FYI in Cynical Historian: Our very own Exodus story. From the “Land of milk and honey” to the Wilderness of the desert: Workers’ Paradise no more: Devan Nair at work in the 1960s.

S’pore drops 92 places

In the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI), S’pore is ranked 11. Something the local MSM and millionaire ministers crow about, while TOC, TRE and their ilk on social media pretend the HDI doesn’t exist or call it “fake news”.

But a new report presents an adjustment to the HDI for planetary pressures.

The adjustment corresponds to multiplying the HDI by an adjustment factor, creating the PHDI where P stands for “Planet”.

“If a country puts no pressure on the planet, its PHDI and HDI would be equal, but the PHDI falls below the HDI as pressure rises. The adjustment factor is calculated as the arithmetic mean of indices measuring carbon dioxide emissions per capita, which speaks to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and material footprint per capita, which relates to closing material cycles.”

Go to http://report.hdr.undp.org/part-3.html for charts and an animation to explain this verbal garbage

Whatever, we drop 92 places. Many developed countries also like liddat but we fall the mostest. Go to page 255 of http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr2020.pdf for table.

Global banks boost S’pore hiring

They hedging Hong Kong risk.

But what will be % of jobs going to S’poreans, especially those who moan and groan on TOC, TRE and other anti-PAP sites, and social media that FTs gets all the jobs here?

Deflation? What deflation?

We keep reading of deflation

Singapore’s core and headline inflation both weakened last month, continuing a deflationary trend seen in previous months.

Inflationary pressures are likely to remain muted for the rest of the year, experts said.

Core inflation, which excludes accommodation and private road transport costs, came in at -0.2 per cent year on year last month, slightly below the -0.1 per cent seen in September, according to data released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) yesterday.

Constructive, nation-building ST in late November

, yet for most of us the prices of daily necessities (no more discounts from Fairprice on French butter or cream cheese)), or small luxuries keep creeping up: think Old Chang Kee’s curry puffs or fish balls. SAD.

No, it’s not the PAP govt “fixing” the data, it’s something Europeans have a problem with too

The prices of things that matter to us go up, the prices of things we don’t think about (even if they are important to us), go down.

Silver bonds: HK govt loves its old people

As someone who has problems diversifying cash generated from dividends and capital gains (Can’t put into my CPF account but topped up my 98 yr old mum’s MediSave to the full amount. It pays 6% interest per annum.) into non equity assets, I wish our govt would have something similar to what HK has for oldies with cash.

HK at regular intervals issues “silver bonds” for oldies

The HKMA announced the issue of the fifth batch of silver bond targeting Hong Kong residents aged 65 or above. It will be available for subscription from 1st December.
• The tenor will be 3 years and the minimum guaranteed interest rate will be 3.5%, the highest since record. The total issue amount will be HK$10 billion and could be increased to as much as HK$15 billion, depending on the response. This is much more than the previous issue amount of HK$3 billion.

OCBC Securities

HK like us has an old age problem. It’s even worse there.

OCBC says that HK’s population aged 65 is about 1.38m and accounted for 18.3% of total population as of mid 2020, up from 15.3% as of mid-2015 and higher than the 17% for OECD members in 2019. Population aged 65 and above (% of total population) here was reported at 12.39 % in 2019, according to the World Bank.

OCBC says that Given the worsening aging problem in HK, “it is good to provide some asset management tool for the elderly to grow their assets to ease future financial burden.”

Dare say this HK but dare not say this about S’pore. LOL.

Btw, the issuance of silver bonds are not for the purpose of financing any budget deficit but mainly for promoting the development of retail bond market. Like govt here, HK govt has lots of cash.

Give me decent interest income from govt bonds, not freedom to riot. Here Pay And Pay means neither alternative is available. SAD.

Myth PAP cares more for GDP than for Sporeans?

Millionaire ministers prefer to lock down economy to save lives seems to be the implication of u/m.

What do you think?

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Dr Goh and his merry men

For all their academic brilliance Ah Loong and team have not advanced beyond tinkering with the framework that Dr Goh Keng Swee, Hon Swee Sen and Albert Winsemius devised. Evolution is fine to a point. But surely the world has undergone revolutionary change. When they were constructing their model of serving MNCs as a path to grow the economy, serving MNCs was “neo-colonialism”. Today even Red China serves as as the MNCs’ factory.

Problem S’pore, PAP face

Related posts

— Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh retired

— Dr Goh’s HK counterpart had similar views on MRT and other major issues

— Why S’pore industrialised in the 60s

— SG50: Three cheers for Goh Keng Swee

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Remember, the 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)

And based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter

But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.

Part of Tharman’s FB post

Why I’m light on office space list cos

In future, 85% of employees would prefer to work remotely at least two to three days a week, according to a survey by CBRE a commercial real estate services company.

And there’s this:

If a white collar job here can be done from home, it can be offshored somewhere cheaper. Could someone else do it more cheaply from KL, JB, Bangkok, Mumbai or Manila? 

Another big problem looming for S’pore

Another big problem looming for S’pore

Can $4G can solve this problem or not?

The shift to remote work carries an inherent risk. If a white collar job here can be done from home, it can be offshored somewhere cheaper. Could someone else do it more cheaply from KL, JB, Bangkok, Mumbai or Manila? 

No need for MNCs to employ overpaid, unhappy, lazy and ungrateful TOC or TRE reading PMETs in their regional HQs. Can sack all these ingrates and employ hardworking, cheap labour working in KL, JB, Bangkok, Mumbai or Manila. And they can save on FT salaries here: no need to pay condo rents for mamas who then give their employers a paid reputation by sneering at S’porean uncles and aunties for being poor.

Juz saying.

For the record, the 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)

And based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter

But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.

Part of Tharman’s FB post

RCEP: Kee Chiu minister talks cock

At the the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

After what has been a challenging year, the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement “will be the bright spot that points the direction ahead”, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing on Sunday (Nov 15). 

“The signing of the RCEP agreement is a timely boost to the longer-term prospects of the region. It will be the bright spot that points the direction ahead,” Mr Chan told the media after the signing.

Constructive, nation-building CNA

Bright spot? What bright spot?

The RCEP does bugger all for S’pore. No expected impact on real income. SAD.

Money talks, bull shit, like Lim Tean, walks is juz noise.

Any wonder that S’poreans have little confidence in the $4G leaders?

The 4G leaders failed their legitimacy test: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote. (Btw, written in 2018: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.)

Better still for S’poreans, based on what PM, Lawrence Wong and Shanmugan said the PAP is very aware that their legitimacy is waning: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter

But the bad, sad news is how they are trying to fix the legitimacy problem. Instead of listening to Tharman’s views (see below), the PAP are trying to shift the goal posts, lowering the high water mark of success: now only aiming for 65% of the popular vote as their high water mark of popularity and success, not -70%+ mark of the past: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And we must be a more tolerant democracy, with greater space for divergent views, and a more active civil society, without the public discourse becoming divisive or unsettling the majority.It will be good for Singapore if we evolve in these three ways. They will each help ensure stability in our democracy in the years to come. And they will tap on the energies and ideas of a younger generation of Singaporeans and their desire to be involved in public affairs.

Part of Tharman’s FB post

Why we needed FTs by the cattle truck loads

From Nikkei Asia. It also part of constructive, nation-building media? Move aside SPH, MediaCorp running dogs. PAP govt now got FTs doing their propaganda for them. (Related post: Our education system that screwed up?)

Our education system that screwed up?

Reasons employers say they need FTs. Locals no got skills. From Nikkei Asia.

Double confirm, no GST rise until after next GE

Shumething I predicted recently: Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE).

Since then there’s these two headlines from last week

COVID-19 downturn to be more prolonged than past recessions, slow recovery for jobs market: MAS

S’pore’s recovery from downturn set to take 18 months, twice as long as earlier recessions: Economists

Recent headlines in the constructive, nation-building bmedia

Before these, there was what Heng said in mid October

A hike in Goods and Services Tax (GST) cannot be deferred indefinitely because it is necessary to support future needs such as preschool education and healthcare.

However, the Government will continue to study the timing of the increase in GST rate carefully. In doing so, it will take into account the pace of Singapore’s economic recovery, its revenue outlook and how much spending can be deferred without jeopardising the country’s long-term needs.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/gst-hike-cant-be-deferred-indefinitely-govt-will-carefully-study-timing-increase-dpm-heng

Going by the next PM’s choice of words,

Government will continue to study the timing of the increase in GST rate carefully. In doing so, it will take into account the pace of Singapore’s economic recovery, its revenue outlook and how much spending can be deferred without jeopardising the country’s long-term needs.

if there’s no V-shaped recovery, but a K-shaped recovery (What’s a K-shaped recovery? Recovery is K shaped), as is likely. there be no GST hike until after next GE. PAP doesn’t believe in suicide.

But next time GST rises, it might be up 4 points? Because

it is necessary to support future needs such as preschool education and healthcare.

PM Lawrence Wong circa 2028

Nice to know S$ is a “Biden currency”

The Koran, Mexican and Chinese currencies are expected to be big winners from a Biden win. Contrast that with the Turkish and Russian currencies.

The chart shows that we will benefit from a Biden win.

Do the following show how of touch and uncaring are union leaders, PAP MPs and millionaire ministers?

This letter to ST’s Forum seems to show that they don’t really care for 32,000 poor S’poreans, unlike the Wankers.

Forum: How can anyone survive on less than $1,300?

The priority should not be to defend the statistics and policies on why there should not be a minimum wage level (WP MPs and NTUC deputy chief spar over minimum wage, Oct 16).

Instead, one should first consider how any one individual or family can survive on less than $1,300 a month when the cost of living in Singapore is notoriously high.

These 32,000 or so full-time workers urgently need help, and should not be tossed around as statistics whenever the topic of minimum wage is raised; $1,300 a month would not solve all their daily needs but it is a good start to give them some hope.

If we do not lift these 32,000 workers out of the pit of low wages, it is futile to talk about upgrading their skills.

If we cannot help them put food on the dinner table or provide for their basic needs, it is futile to talk about increasing productivity.

Be practical and realistic. These are our fellow Singaporeans who are poor and desperate. These are people we should not ignore regardless of the number.

The question is whether we give them the dignity and respect they deserve.

Ho Ting Fei (Dr)

As the good doctor says, the issue is the suffering of 32,000 S’poreans, not whether the PAP govt’s Progressive Wage Model (PWM) or minimum wages is better.

And whatever the merits of the Progressive Wage Model it’s slow. No wonder we have a national productivity problem when the NTUC, PAP govt and employers set the example of productivity at work: taking their time to implement what they all say are very impt national policies.

A retired union leader upset by Wanker Jamus ‘ comments about “folksy” union leaders inadvertently let the cat out of the bag in a letter to ST’s Forum.

TOC’s “correspondent” used the letter to pen an article headed

Unionist Nasordin and his tripartite partners implement min wages at snail’s rate of 3 sectors in 8 yrs.

It ends

In any case, it can be seen that despite union leaders like Nasordin, who “care deeply for our workers” and push for PWM expansion to other sectors earnestly, they managed only to establish PWM with its associated minimum wage in 3 industry sectors in the last 8 years, since 2012 when PWM was first mooted.

It has been observed from the Singapore Standard Industrial Classification manual that there are at least dozens of of sectors in Singapore. At the rate Nasordin and his tripartite partners go about implementing their PWM model of 3 sectors per 8 years, by the time minimum wages are implemented in all industry sectors in Singapore, the workers would have been retired or dead by then. Unionist Nasordin and his tripartite partners implement min wages at snail’s rate of 3 sectors in 8 yr.

Go read the article.

Unionist Nasordin and his tripartite partners implement min wages at snail’s rate of 3 sectors in 8 yrs

Related posts: Another reason to introduce minimum wages and More evidence PAP talking cock on minimum wages

How many here prepared to trade-off more unemployment benefits with higher taxes?

Not many, see below. Even got some (luckily only 12%) “disagree with unemployment benefits, as they believe there are enough training and job opportunities”. Queen Jos and other millionaire ministers must be smiling. These people must also be part of this group: Sia suay! 24% of S’poreans are more PAP than the PAP on our reseves)

When posed with a scenario of paying higher taxes to fund unemployment benefits:

Only 31% of Singaporeans feel those unemployed should receive financial support while looking for work, even if it means paying higher taxes. But support is higher among Gen Zs (37%) compared to the older Baby Boomers (23%)

12% of Singaporeans disagree with unemployment benefits, as they believe there are enough training and job opportunities

57% of Singaporeans believe in giving financial support to those unemployed, but not at the expense of themselves having to pay higher levels of tax

https://blackbox.com.sg/everyone/2020/09/16/sg-employment-is-there-any-chance-of-going-back-to-the-way-things-were (Yes, Yes I know this was done in August)

S’poreans are a selfish lot. They deserve a Pay And Pay government.

What do you think?

Double confirm: Why the PAP die die wanted to hold GE earlier this yr

Economy is really in a bad way. (Btw in May I wrote this: Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later)

Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said as much as 20% of the city-state’s economy faces “deep scarring” from the coronavirus pandemic.

Aviation and tourism industries are a worry, especially with an expected slow recovery in travel.

S’pore’s trade-reliant economy, already in recession, is facing its worst contraction on record — about 5% to 7% this year. The government has allocated about S$100 billion in stimulus to cushion the blow for businesses and help save jobs:

MAS has kept monetary policy unchanged tomorrow. Fiscal measures will do the heavy lifting in getting the economy back on track, unlike in the US. Sometimes good to have a one party state.

But the bad news is that Heng thinks PAP govt has done enough: Did u know Heng said no more additional round of support measures?

PAP a socialist party again?/ Banks doing NS

Covid-19 is making govts all over the world ditch their ideologies and becoming pragmatists .

The PAP govt is no exception: its forcing the banks (protected and cosseted by the PAP govt) to be nice to debtors:

With many borrowers expected to continue to face financial issues amid a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is extending its support measures for various groups of borrowers, including allowing those with property loans to apply to temporarily reduce their monthly instalment payments.

Those with renovation and student loans may also opt for a longer repayment period, while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will get to partially defer principal payments for some loans and receive customised restructuring options.

The MAS, in its media release on Monday, urged borrowers who are able to resume loan repayments in full to start doing so from January so as to avoid increasing their overall debt.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-mas-extends-financial-relief-measures-borrowers-13202850

In the late 70s when I was in London, I heard a story that at a recent PAP cadre conference, the word “socialism” was removed from the PAP’s constitution. So it’s nice to see the PAP returning to its socialist roots. One Harry Lee must be spinning in his urn.

Of course all these moratoriums affect banks’ profits. There’ll be those who can pay and pay, but will ask for a delay. They can use the cash that would have gone to the banks to play the markets.

And there’ll be a day when the banks have to write off the loans that the govt is now forcing them to pretend are not in default, and extend.

But don’t worry, the PAP govt is on top of the situation. In a sign that things could deteriorate for the banks and their investors:

Financial institutions will be allowed to use their security interests in Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats as collateral for liquidity from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), as part of the Government’s plan to improve their access to funding from the central bank amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The new rule is part of the amendments to the Housing and Development Bill passed on Tuesday (Oct 6).

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/banks-pledge-hdb-property-loans-to-mas-credit-liquidity-13212374

Of course, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee had to say

that although banks in Singapore have healthy liquidity buffers, greater access to credit will strengthen their resilience given current economic headwinds and is a “pre-emptive measure”. 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/banks-pledge-hdb-property-loans-to-mas-credit-liquidity-13212374

He would have to say this wouldn’t he?

What do you think? Is the minister BSing?

Btw, when banks cut dividends further: Can local bank stocks fall by 37%? (cont’d)

Did u know Heng said no more additional round of support measures?

On Oct 3, DPM Heng announced via Facebook that there will not be an additional round of support measures. I did not read about it in the constructive, nation-building: but maybe it was tucked away in somewhere. I read in an article in the Edge. (Details of the how the $100 billion is being spent: Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget.)

At this stage of the crisis, my team and I are fully committed to support our workers and businesses by refining our policies, expanding outreach and improving implementation, to make the most of the $100 billion committed to the fight against COVID-19. We hope that businesses and workers can make the best use of the measures that have been committed.

FB

But note out of 33 billion in Fortitude Bugget, S$13 billion is for “Contingencies Funds” Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget.

And the btw use of reserves is peanuts:

From the above mentioned link:

Whatever, all the budgets means the government’s total fiscal injection will be S$92.9 billion, almost one-fifth of the country’s S$500 billion economy. Only Germany and Japan spend more than us when it comes to pandemic stimulus packages as a percentage of GDP. Germany 31.6% and Japan 19.6%.

The government has so far drawn down S$52 billion from our reserves to fund the packages.

Impressive?

“Peanuts”: our reserves estimated to be worth over US$710 billion or S$1 trillion by ang mohs. Only 5% of our reserves drawn down and do remember that S$13 million is for “contingencies”. Exclude that S$13 million and only 4% of reserves will be spent.

Bah humbug, a reasonable man may say.

S’poreans want to work from home

An article in the constructive, nation-building ST about S’poreans slowly returning to work in offices reminded of an FT chart in late August or early Sept.

Black mark or slap in the face for the PAP govt’s handling of Covid-19?

Compared with Europe, S’poreans don’t want to return to offices. They all want to skive is it?

Seriously maybe S’poreans think the PAP govt mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic?

The FT reports that whereas the continental European countries think their govts handled the pandemic pretty well, the British and the Americans think their govt’s mishandled the pandemic, hence their reluctance to return to offices.

But then there is this survey: Criticism of PAP govt’s handling of Covid-19 is really “noise”. It shows that S’poreans think the PAP govt is doing a good job in containing the pandemic.

Say one thing, but do another thing isit?

What do you think?

Anti-PAP “noise” is from PMET losers and deadbeats

Data from the Ministry of Manpower last week was very grim.

OCBC Securities reported “total employment change in Q2 declining 103.5k, the sharpest on record. This brought the total employment decline in H1to 129.1k.
▪ Retrenchments more than doubled, from 3220 in Q1 to 8130 in Q2. This is higher than the peak during the SARS period, but lower than the all-time high of 12760 during the GFC.
▪ The overall unemployment rate rose from 2.4% in Q1 to 2.8% in Q2. Resident unemployment rate rose from 3.3% to 3.8%.”

Interestingly the MoM data showed the most impacted sectors (in terms of unemployment and retrenchments) are those that rely more on non-PMET workers, such as manufacturing, construction and accommodation & food services.

The more resilient sectors were in electronics manufacturing, information & communications and financial & insurance services, where remote work is more likely.

Bottom line: the poor are suffering terribly, PMETs are not. Bit like in London where the poor suffer more than the well off according to the Economist.

Must be PMET losers and deadbeats KPKBing on TRE, TOC and other anti-PAP alt media publications, and social media about their plight, and blaming the PAP govt.

S’pore equities: Why buying a dog is a gd thing

According to OCBC’s head of research Carmen Lee (We once worked in same firm, she as analyst, I as dealer/ saleman), S’pore stocks “could prove a safe harbour to tide over stronger headwinds in the face of more attractive stock valuations.” 

“While the Singapore market underperformed during the recent uptrend, it is also less volatile during the Sep 2020 market downtrend, making it ideal as additional holdings to a diversified stock portfolio,” she writes in a 14 September report. She points out that while the S&P 500 fell 6.7% from its September peak, the STI only lost 2% — a relatively small correction vis-a-vis most markets. 

She also writes, “We continue to favour companies with strong management or sponsors, good market shares, well-established businesses or brand names and companies with a more defensive stream of earnings.” 

Favourites include the usual DBS Group Holdings Ltd, Capitaland Mall Trust, Raffles Medical Group, ST Engineering, Sheng Siong Group, Singtel and Starhill Global REIT. 

Nice try Carmen. LOL.

Why there’ll be no GST rise until after next GE

The govt will take steps to strengthen its revenue position like raising the Goods and Services Tax (GST), said PM in waiting Heng Swee Keat on Friday (Aug 28).

I’m sure he knows -that

[T]wo ill-timed increases in the consumption tax, in the name of fiscal probity, both of which pushed the economy into recession.

Economist on Abe’s legacy

So that’s why maybe Heng also said the govt will “carefully monitor” the timing of such moves by considering the state of the economy and spending needs. “Carefully monitor” is his get-out-jail card of being the public face of Pay And Pay.

I mean with the next GE scheduled by end 2026, a recession in 2024 induced by a GST rise in 2023, is a vote loser. The way the economy is tanking (6% contraction expected), GST can only be raised in 2022 (Economy forcasted to grow by 5.5%) at the earliest. But based on the Japanese experience doing it then is risky. That leaves 2023 and, in turn, carries the risk of a recession in 2024.

Any later than 2023, the PAP is dicing with only 51% of the popular vote in the next GE.

And anyway, fiscal tightening should be resisted until recovery’s well underway: not to be nipped in the bud by a Hard Truth that was BS in the first place.

Casting my Chine fortune sticks, I prophesie that there’ll be no GST rise beforethe next GE. PAP knows the trade-offs and being Mr PAY And Pay could mean that its share of the popular vote falls below the pass mark: 60%.

In the context of a 60- 61% share of the popular vote being mud in the eye for the PAP, anything less than 65% will be seen as less than a smooth transition by the PAP and the voters.

Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote

Related post: How the PAP plans to fix its legitimacy problem.

And remember I predicted this before the analysts: Double confirm: No GST rise this yr.

S’porean core? What’s this BS?

Not me but a regular TRE commentator. Worth a read. (Btw, glad that the writer has recovered: More evidence that being anti-PAP is bad for yr mental health.)

The fact that we are even talking about a Singaporean core shows that our leaders have failed Singaporeans

Have you heard of the Malaysian core? What about the Indonesian core? Or the Vietnamese core? There simply isn’t any talk of such a thing because it is a given, a birthright that needs no debate and discussion.

Only in this country do we keep talking about protecting a Singaporean core, even worse about restoring a lost Singaporean core.

Singapore was built on the backs of our forefathers. We grew up reciting the pledge with clenched fist. Our sons dutifully made it through National Service.

Yet we have become natural-born citizens who have to be assured that Singaporeans come first, that the long-neglected Singaporean core will be made good and whole once again.

In his parliamentary speech yesterday, West Coast GRC Member of Parliament Ang Wei Neng called for the setting-up of a National Human Resource Committee to nurture a Singaporean core of talent.

He recounted his experience at Changi Business Park before the COVID-19 outbreak, when for the first time he felt “like a foreigner in my own country”. He went on to question why there are so many Employment Pass, E-Pass and S-Pass holders in Singapore.

Also in Parliament yesterday, Minister of State for Manpower and Education Gan Siow Huang stressed that employers should view Singaporeans favourably when hiring and retain citizens over foreigners if retrenchment cannot be avoided.

For years, Singaporeans have been crying out loud but they were given 1,001 reasons why the foreign influx must continue unabated. Those who continued to complain were called racists and xenophobic.

It is only today that politicians from the People’s Action Party are saying the things the people have been saying for more than a decade.

It is only today that the ones who persisted with the vile policies start to say don’t worry, we will look after Singaporean workers first, we will have your backs no matter what.

Instead of jumping for joy at hearing that the Singaporean core will now be protected (or are they only paying lip service?), we should be asking how this travesty has been allowed to happen in the first place.

How on earth did natural-born Singaporeans get sidelined and squeezed out in our own backyard?

Augustine Low

Btw, it’s also a good riposte to PM’s

The Government will always be on the side of Singaporeans. What is the point of creating jobs for foreigners, if it does not benefit Singaporeans? Why would we want to do that? 

PM in parly recently.

Sia Suay King and Queen talk cock yet again

Singapore is putting focus on “quality, rather than quantity” with the latest increases to the qualifying salaries of foreigners on Employment Passes and S Passes, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing on Saturday (Aug 29).

Constructive, nation-building MediaCorp freesheet

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Background

The Ministry of Manpower announced that the minimum salaries for new Employment Pass candidates will be raised by S$600 to S$4,500 from September. Holders of the S Passes will have to meet a S$2,500 threshold, instead of S$2,400, from October.

For the first time, there will also be a separate salary criterion for Employment Pass holders working in financial services: The minimum qualifying monthly salary for these workers will be further raised to S$5,000 later in the year.

—-

Well, he surely can’t have got feedback from the ground because

Companies said they can live with higher operational costs …

Those interviewed said the impact on them is quite minimal since they already pay their Employment Pass holders higher than the minimum requirement

…

While higher manpower costs would be inevitable with the latest changes to salary requirements for work pass holders, companies contacted by TODAY said that the impact on costs is not something they are too concerned about.

Constructive, nation-building MediaCorp freesheet

Quality over quantity? What quality over quantity when employers say they already pay more than minimum? And are happy to absorb additional costs because FTs are betterest.

But to be fair to Kee Chiu, Jos, MoM minister, also talking cock

As for jobs for S’poreans, the constructive, nation-building media also reported that businesses and “expers” questioned whether the policy directions will achieve the desired effect.

Recovery is K shaped

Optimists believed a “v-shaped” economic recovery was just around the corner, while others foresaw a slower “Nike swoosh” of a rebound. Those who believed the pain was here to stay, believed a “U” was most likely.

Seems the rebound is “K-shaped”, a swift fall followed by a big divide in fortunes. Some segments of the economy have recovered sharply, while others have continued to downtrend. Low-wage workers* suffering the most while asset values soa, is a problem that our multi-millionaire natural aristocrats (and other govts) have to solve. At least, they can look at their monthly CPF statements and smile.

---

From a recent DBS report, Uncle Leong (Remember him?) estimated that around 445,536 lower-income individuals (earning less than $3,000 per month) have had their salaries reduced by more than 50% because of Covid-19.

Slow growth sucked, didn’t it?

The last time Singapore was in a recession was in 2001 when the dot com bubble burst and the economy declined by 1 per cent. 

Constructive, nation-building media

But life still sucked when growth was low by historical standards.

We’ve had slow growth since 2011. And it sucked for most S’poreans but not for millionaire ministers and reit investors (including self). To be fair, it hurt the PAP ministers electorally in the 2011 GE and PE. They then gave us back some of our money: Are you better off now than you were in 2011?

Another chart showing same thing. Really. That’s why I’m showing it: how numbers are presented can be deceptive.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-growth-rate

Can local bank stocks fall by 37%? (cont’d)

Further to Can local bank stocks fall by 37%? And other investment tales, here’s another good reason to think that bank stocks can really tank.

In the UK, where banks are usually generous dividend payers, after the authorities told banks to stop paying dividends until next yr, the banks decided to compete on seeing who could %wise have the largest loan loss provisions. HSBC (where I’ve owned shares since the early 1980s) won this show of macho, increasing provisions by a third more than expected. Shares fell by another 4% on Monday and 3% yesterday. The share price is near its 1996 lows and have already fallen below the late noughties low.

What I’m predicting is that our banks will be increasing their loan provisions beyond analysts’ expectations. They will be reporting their latest results soon.

So it’s possible that our banks’ share prices can fall by 37%.

Last chance to sell as shares recovered their Monday losses yesterday.

Good luck, yield chasers who tot banks were safe. Why not try industrial reits? They’ve held up pretty well. Buy the second liners (not the GLCs) so that I can smile when I look at their prices.

Great S’pore Fashion Sale when Covid-19 restrictions finally end

Retail stores “will have to discount heavily” to sell excess stock that may now be out of season according to retail experts.

Many clothing retailers have been sitting there with stores full of stock which they haven’t be able to shift.

One of the most pressing issues for retailers is working capital and there is a huge overhang of inventory at fashion stores.

Xia suay! Technical recession? What technical recession?

Singapore in technical recession after GDP shrinks 41.2% in Q2 from preceding quarter due to COVID-19

Constructive, nation-building CNA

Singapore enters technical recession as GDP plunges 12.6% in Q2: Flash data

Constructive, nation-building ST

Singapore has entered a technical recession after its economy contracted 41.2 per cent in the second quarter from the previous three months, dragged down by weak external demand and Covid-19 “circuit breaker” measures.

MediaCorp’s Constructive, nation-building freesheet

Kee Chiu if you believe it’s a “technical recession”.

The term “technical recession is used when there are 2 consecutive quarters of slightly negative numbers. There is nothing “technical” about the 41% collapse after “only” a 3% fall in the previous quarter.

Kee chiu if you still believe it’s a “technical recession”.

In America, the usually post-fact society, when the GDP was likely to fall because of Covid-19, a recession was “called” even by the Fed, the world’s central bank, even before the monthly data came out.

Kee chiu if you believe we juz had a “technical recession”.

The ang moh media got it right when they reported:

Singapore enters recession after economy shrinks more than 40% quarter on quarter

CNBC

Singapore Slumps Into Recession With Record 41.2% GDP Plunge

Bloomberg

But then they are not constructive, nor nation-building. Ask Trump.

The use of the term “technical recession” by our constructive, nation-building media must have resulted from a media briefing by some xia suay Ah Beng from MTI. Kee chui chiu if you know his identity?

For the avoidance of doubt, the technocrats at MTI did not use the term: https://www.mti.gov.sg/Newsroom/Press-Releases/2020/07/Singapore-GDP-Contracted-by-12_6-Per-Cent-in-the-Second-Quarter-of-2020

S’pore: Where we really have choices

On her FB page, a friend (real life) who migrated to Australia (her genius of a son could not pass Chinese to save his life and ended up in neighbourhood “good” school: not good enough for mummy) in a conversation about purchasing power parity (The PPP is a macroeconomic tool that allows the comparison of what it costs to buy the same/similar basket of goods across different countries.) wrote: 

In my observation Singapore has a big range, so happily the options are many – in housing, transport, dining & food. If one is happy/limited to shelter in public housing, MRT/uber & airconed hawker centres/bistros you can have a pretty decent life. In Australia the range is much narrower, for instance, there isin’t that many ultra-expensive restaurants nor cheap and good food outlets

She also analysed the relative rankings of S’pore and Oz:

Surprisingly Singapore just scraped through at #50 of the world’s most expensive countries with a price level of minus 4% below average. Australia has the dubious honour of being #6 with a price level of +68% above average.

Whatever, we may be living in a de facto one-party state, but we sure can mix and match our life style choices.

Vote wisely: Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

But try to make sure PAP share of the vote juz exceeds 60%: Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP. If more sure to PAP and Pay

Pay And Pay

Articles and analysis of various “price increase” written by Uncle Leong* (Remember him?)

Water – “PUB: $1.1b profits last 7 years – how much last 53 years? (Feb 24, 2017)

Service & Conservancy Charges – “S & CC: A truly caring Govt?” (Feb 17, 2017)

Gas – “City Gas prices to rise by 4.5 per cent from Feb 1” (Jan 31, 2017)

Electricity – “Electricity: One of the highest in the world? (Jan 1, 2017)

Childcare fees – “Fee hikes at 200 childcare centres this year” (Jan 1, 2017)

Parking – “HDB car park rates increase 60%? (Dec 16, 2016)

Rubbish fees – “Rubbish fees up: NEA surplus up 32.9%? (Nov 8, 2016)

University hostel fees – “University hostel fees up 6.8% p.a. despite $1b surplus?” (Jun 28, 2016)

Taxis licensing – “Taxi drivers hit by triple whammy?” (Jun 24, 2016)

Hawkers’ misc fees – “Hawkers’ misc fees increased by ? %? (Jun 22, 2016)

Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later

————————————————

*PM’s defamation suit against Uncle Leong coming to court soon. Talk cock, sing song Lim Tean is defending him but charging a lot of money. Not pro bono work.

S’poreans see Fortitude Budget no ak

That’s the conclusion I draw from the following slides from Blackbox dated 4 June 2020. S’poreans not that stupid: they know Fortitude Budget full of BS and smoke and mirrors.

https://blackbox.com.sg/everyone/2020/04/30/covid-19-weekly-community-tracking

Why Pay And Pay govt wants elections earlier than later

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat says better for S’pore to call for general elections as soon as possible Our next election must take place by April 14, 2021 and some leading Oppo leaders (Think Mad Dog) are more than happy for the PAP govt to continue ruling until the pandemic is tamed: Xia suay! SDP wants PAP to remain in power until after virus threat ends

But Heng said elections ought to happen soon as “the earlier we can rally everybody together to deal with these very significant challenges ahead, and also to deal with these very significant uncertainties in the months and years ahead”, the better to prepare S’pore for the future. He said the economy faces significant long-term challenges that need to be dealt with over the next five to 10 years, he said.

Heng, in response to a question if S’poreans will have to wait until Phase 3 of resuming economic activity before the election: “The sooner that we can deal with the longer term challenges, the better S’poreans will emerge out of this, and S’pore will emerge stronger. So I would say that, yes, elections are coming nearer by the day, and you have to be prepared for it.”

Here’s the point to note

“Our financial position will be a lot weaker in the coming years. And I’m thinking hard about this, about what we need to do, and how we need to continue to find ways that we can manage this difficult financial situation.”

DPM Heng

In simple English, “We got to find the money to pay for all the goodies”: Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget/ Hali tied of signing?/ Peanuts?. Remember that Mah Bow Tan (Remember him?) once said that that raiding the reserves is not an option?. Well Heng and gang have been raiding drawing down the reserves,

Once election is won by 70%, and Lim Tean, S/o JBJ, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Kin Lian and Mad Dog really trying hard to ensure that the PAP gets 80% of the popular vote, the taxes and levies will up.

GST might go up even earlier than promised: “No money to pay millionaire Hali and ministers salsries”, PAP govt will say.

And tariffs on utilities will go up. Remember VivianB had said in parly in 2015 (juz before GE) that there was no need to change the price of water because of PUB’s improvements in membrane tech and productivity and that the water tariff and WCT reflected the scarcity of water, but prices went up after GE 2017.

---

Pay And Pay

Articles and analysis of various “price increase” written by Uncle Leong (Remember him?)

Water – “PUB: $1.1b profits last 7 years – how much last 53 years? (Feb 24, 2017)

Service & Conservancy Charges – “S & CC: A truly caring Govt?” (Feb 17, 2017)

Gas – “City Gas prices to rise by 4.5 per cent from Feb 1” (Jan 31, 2017)

Electricity – “Electricity: One of the highest in the world? (Jan 1, 2017)

Childcare fees – “Fee hikes at 200 childcare centres this year” (Jan 1, 2017)

Parking – “HDB car park rates increase 60%? (Dec 16, 2016)

Rubbish fees – “Rubbish fees up: NEA surplus up 32.9%? (Nov 8, 2016)

University hostel fees – “University hostel fees up 6.8% p.a. despite $1b surplus?” (Jun 28, 2016)

Taxis licensing – “Taxi drivers hit by triple whammy?” (Jun 24, 2016)

Hawkers’ misc fees – “Hawkers’ misc fees increased by ? %? (Jun 22, 2016)

————————————————————————

And income tax and corporate taxes.

Remember after GE, the PAP’s 4G has their mandate ( Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP; Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power; and Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G? ) and can give voters the finger.

What better way than by increasing taxes and levies?

Cheat sheet for Fortitude Budget/ Hali tied of signing?/ Peanuts?

Confused by the reporting of the constructive, nation-building media (“The PAP cares, they really do”) and anti-PAP alt media (“Kanna con” or “Give chicken’s head and take back the whole chicken”) on what the Fortitude Budget is all about? After all we got this yr

–‘Unity Budget’ (February 18): S$6.4 billion

— ‘Resilience Budget’ (March 26): S$48.4 billion. S$17 billion drawn from reserves

— ‘Solidarity Budget’ (April 6): S$5.1 billion. S$4 billion drawn from reserves

–S$3.8 billion economic stimulus (April 21), alongside extension of lockdown. Yes this had no name.

Now on May 26 got ‘Fortitude Budget’ worth S$33 billion, S$31 billion drawn from reserves. But S$13 billion is for “Contingencies Funds”: I suppose Hali doesn’t want to keep raiding the reserves?

So what’s in it?
— Jobs Support Scheme extended by one month until November, with firms that cannot reopen – such as shops, gyms and cinemas – to get 75 per cent wage support until August or when they are allowed to reopen
— S$2 billion for the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package to create 40,000 jobs, 25,000 traineeships and 30,000 skills training opportunities
— S$800 million for the Covid-19 Support Grant to give to those who lose their jobs because of the crisis
— S$18 million for social service agencies to maintain service continuity, retain staff, and adopt technology
— S$13 billion in the Contingencies Funds so the government can respond quickly to unforeseeable developments arising from the pandemic.

Whatever, all the budgets means the government’s total fiscal injection will be S$92.9 billion, almost one-fifth of the country’s S$500 billion economy. Only Germany and Japan spend more than us when it comes to pandemic stimulus packages as a percentage of GDP. Germany 31.6% and Japan 19.6%.

The government has so far drawn down S$52 billion from our reserves to fund the packages.

Impressive?

“Peanuts”: our reserves estimated to be worth over US$710 billion or S$1 trillion by ang mohs. Only 5% of our reserves drawn down and do remember that S$13 million is for “contingencies”. Exclude that S$13 million and only 4% of reserves will be spent.

Bah humbug, a reasonable man may say.

Typography of our (and global) economic recovery

So the economy is expected to shrink between 4 and 7% this year as MTI again downgraded official growth projections for 2020. If the projections are correct (remember that astrologers and other fortune tellers have better track records) we are headed for the worst-ever recession since 1965.

The estimates for non-oil domestic exports (NODX) and total merchandise trade for the year have been cut drastically.

But factory output surged by 13 per cent in April, the second straight month of a year-on-year rise, largely down to gains made by the pharma manufacturing cluster. But excluding biomedical manufacturing, overall output in April fell 3.5% due to COVID-19 related measures both locally and overseas.

So how will the recovery pan out?

Related posts:

— Investing in the time of Covid-19: Watch this index

— What goes down quickly, must go up quickly

— Covid-19 investing: Beware of a double bottom

— Markets: Easy collapse, easy rebound

— Antidote to Covid-19 and market stress

Post Covid-19: Not good news for S’pore

In the brave new world post the Covid-19 pandemic, major MNC banks and corporations may no longer need or feel the need to base lots of people in a city like S’pore.

Reading the fortune sticks from CEOs’ comments.

Having thousands of bank workers in big, expensive city offices “may be a thing of the past”, Barclays boss Jes Staley has said.
About 70,000 of Barclays’ staff worldwide are working from home due to coronavirus lockdown measures.This had led to a rethink of the bank’s long term “location strategy”, Mr Staley said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52467965?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business&link_location=live-reporting-story

 Sergio Ermotti (CEO) said UBS was already thinking about moving out of expensive city-centre offices.

CEO of snacks maker, Mondelez, Dirk van de Put says something similar.

Tata’s chairman talks of three quarters of its work force working from home.

PAP govt prudent? This prudence?

Our debt already so high. Still want to spend so much money?

How come PAP running dogs (Apologies to the real dogs) in parliament not KPKBing that PAP must be prudent and not pass on the sins of overspending onto future generations.

The PAP govt is throwing US$41.6, more than 10% of GDP to fight the economic and financial consequences of the pandemic in an election year.

Whatever happened to MPs like Liang Eng Hwa, Kate Spade (who else?), Hri Kumat and Arthur Fong: PM aiming left, to hit the centre/ Axed? PAP MPs who don’t get it.

When they so quiet?

Govt change policy, so they sit down and shut up?

Related posts:

Can the hard-hit spend their way out of a recession?

“Prudent banker” is an oxymoron

Would the dorm workers prefer to be repatriated to India and Bangladesh?

Khaw’s got a point.

Something that a very disgruntled Quitter living in Finland (kids get free education there, can only get into neighbourhood “good” schools here and he can’t afford int’l school fees here); ang moh tua kees like Kirsten Han; anti-PAP activists and cybernuts; and frustrated wannabe Sith Lords (now trying to reinvent themselves as Jedi) like ex-ST tua kee Bertha Henson forget when criticising the PAP’s govt’s less than diligent efforts (F9, downright careless in my view) in looking after the welfare of our FT workers living in dorms.

Foreign workers in Singapore know they are currently safer in the city-state than elsewhere including their own countries, a minister said, even as a massive coronavirus outbreak among that community shines a spotlight on cramped and oft-unsanitary lodging provided for the low-wage employees.

The workers from overseas are “appreciative” of efforts that range from relieving overcrowding in current facilities, and measures to provide them with medical attention, food and remittance services, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said in a Facebook post on Sunday. Singapore is speeding up construction of additional dormitories, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/foreign-workers-safer-in-singapore-than-elsewhere-minister-says

Most (over 80%) of the almost 14,000 cases are work permit holders residing in dormitories. None has died of Covid-19, although one of dorm resident with Covid-19 was found dead: police are investigating.

Related post: Covid-19: Reason why no Indian or Bangladeshi worker has died?

India or Bangladesh got anything like this meh? https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-behind-the-scenes-at-the-changi-exhibition-centre-12677966

Yes our millionaire ministers screwed up badly by ignoring these FT workers, and we S’poreans are paying the price for their incompetence. But things are being rectified ASAP.

Related posts:

Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Tourism: Look on the bright side

In Tourism: Where Covid-19 really hurts us, I pointed out that the drop in tourism will hurt the economy. But, looking on the bright side, things no longer that expensive for us locals.:

Cities that get a large part of their income from tourism could become cheaper as their economies shrink and prices are driven down.

The impact of the coronavirus has shaken the world economy, with the travel and tourism industries among the hardest hit. Hong Kong and Singapore are two of the cities that could see a big drop in revenue as demand for leisure activities, restaurants and accommodation plummets. This weaker demand could drive down prices, making these cities cheaper for their inhabitants.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51922267

True, things no longer that expensive for us locals. But got money to spend or not?

Codvid-19: Why God is a S'porean

I tot the above when I read

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has assured Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that the flow of goods and cargo between Singapore and Malaysia, including food supplies, would continue, Mr Lee said on Tuesday (Mar 17).

Mr Lee’s remarks came after Malaysia announced it would bar citizens from going overseas and foreigners from entering the country for about two weeks starting Wednesday

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-malaysia-cargo-goods-border-restrictions-12547142

If Tun had been in charge, there’d be no no free flow of food and goods to S’pore. He’d have use the emergency measures meant to suppress the Wuhan virus to cut off food supplies and goods.

He’d also have ensured that the M’sian workers who regularly commute her to work, would not be able to come and stay here for the next two weeks.

Both these would cripple our economy and hurt us but he’d have the excuse of the need to suppress the spread of the virus.

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Where he has tried to bully us recently:

Water: Why Tun should thank S’poreans

What Tun and our alt media don’t tell us about the water supply from Johor

Tun manufacturing another row to stir his anti-PAP S’porean fans?

Tun chickened out/ Two cheers for cowardly PAP govt

Yet PJ Thum, Kirsten Han and Jolovan Wham (Nothing wrong in asking Tun M to intervene in S’porean affairs) want to lick his ass

——————————————————————————

He likes to try to bring S’pore to its knees or at least make us try “Tolong”, as the links in the above box shows. And attempts to suppress the Wuhan virus in M’sia would have given his reasonable excuses to hurt S’pore and S’poreans.

Muhyiddin, like Najib, are people we can do business with. As would Anwar.

God loves S’pore.

Tourism: Where Covid-19 really hurts us

The govt last month proposed a S$6.4bn ($4.6bn) programme to counter the outbreak’s economic impact. The package was announced a few days after S’pore slashed its growth forecast by a percentage point to -0.5% to 1.5% from 0.5 to 2%. Another package is on the way according to the millionaire ministers.

I’ve pointed out areas where the impact of China’s virus problem here is minimal:

We not reliant on China for manufactured gds

Where S’pore is not too exposed to China

But tourism is different: China is the top source of visitors to Singapore, and accounts for a fifth of arrivals. In Asean, only Thailand gets more, about a quarter of arrivals.

And tourism is important to us:

International tourism accounted for 4.1% of Singapore’s national GDP in 2017, with a direct contribution of $17.7 billion. The percentage of tourism’s contribution to Singapore’s GDP is projected to rise to 4.4% in 2028.

https://www.budgetdirect.com.sg/travel-insurance/research/singapore-tourism-statistics

Despite what the brokers are saying about hospitality stocks, avoid the sector.

Xia suay! If we triple AAA why pay so much more than ang moh sick man?

With the carnage in markets, we’ll soon hear in the constructive, nation-building media that have AAA status.

The PAP govt and its running dogs in parly, in the constructive, nation-building media, and on the internet will be trumpeting our triple A status, reminding of our budget surpluses and prudent budgets

So what? The S’pore 10 year government bond has a 1.335% yield. 

But UK’s 10 year government bond has a yield of now around 0.24% despite the UK not being triple A, and the UK being a sick man:

Since the financial crisis of 2007-2009 Britain has lost its AAA credit rating, seen its debt-to-GDP ratio rise from 40% to more than 80% and voted for Brexit. And yet over the same period the yield on gilts, the benchmark ten-year government bond, has fallen from around 4.5% to under 0.5%. 

Economist

We AAA paying 556.25% more than the UK? CCB. KNN.

Maybe because, our debt-to-GDP ratio is 108%. For that 108%, think and thank CPF.

[O]ur CPF monies are invested in special government bonds. The $ from the bonds flow into the government’s Consolidated Fund together with revenues from taxes etc. All government expenses are paid out from this fund. If there is a surplus (as there usually  because the government is thrifty or mean depending on who is doing the talking) part of that surplus can go to GIC and Temasek. The government argues that because all the monies in the fund  is fungible (cannot be separated), one is wrong to argue that CPF monies are invested abroad.

How we fund our SWFs: ”If Singaporeans are not “hard-driving and hard-striving”, where did GIC and Temasek get so much money to lose?”

PAP govt’s explanation

Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) are non-tradable bonds issued specifically to meet the investment needs of the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Singaporeans’ CPF monies are invested in these special securities which are fully guaranteed by the Government. The securities earn for the CPF Board a coupon rate that is pegged to CPF interest rates that members receive.

https://www.gov.sg/article/is-it-fiscally-sustainable-for-singapore-to-have-such-a-high-level-of-debt

 

We not reliant on China for manufactured gds

Further to Where S’pore is not too exposed to China where I reported that we are not that dependent on China for electrical and electronic components, we are also not very reliant on China for other manufactured goods.

 

Xia suay: life insurance makes a person want to die isit?

I tot the above when I read

[I]dea of unemployment insurance to help retrenched older workers has ‘serious downsides’: Josephine Teo

Constructive, nation-building media

The report goes on:

Mrs Teo said that the Government will “keep an open mind” on unemployment insurance, but pointed out that there are serious downsides to having such a provision. These include reducing workers’ motivation to find work as well as decreasing the willingness of employers to pay retrenchment benefits.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/workers-partys-idea-unemployment-insurance-help-retrenched-older-workers-has-serious?fbclid=IwAR3ODcCR7Oac220dDid0OpipeOJ5KMaLbGVhDPVjEhQc-nFoI_KCagZipvA

I’ll let Chris Kuan and Yeoh Lam Keong explain why Jos’ mouth is full of cock as usual.

Chris Kuan

Contrary to what the Minister said, there are plenty of countries with unemployment insurance and yet low unemployment rates. In my view, there is no universal evidence that it reduces a worker’s incentive to find re-employment, So the whole establishment narrative that unemployment insurance (and jobless benefits) leads to high unemployment is not a universal fact. It is just another moral panic button. However she might be right that unemployment insurance may prove unworkable in Singapore. Why? Because as long as there is easy access to foreign labour, such a scheme may not make it any easier to find re-employment or more importantly provide for better job matches to skills, experience and qualifications which is what it is meant to do. That’s what the establishment failed to mention – that employment protection / stabilization schemes run against the principal policy of growing the economy through access to cheaper labour. It is far easier to say to the plebs that unemployment insurance leads to high unemployment and not say why a labour market with such a hugh foreign worker content, makes it so.

https://www.facebook.com/chris.kuan.94/posts/1282587465264672

Yeoh Lam Keong

Unfortunately, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo does not seem to have a sufficient understanding of labour market economics required to see the important need for unemployment insurance ( UI ) in Singapore for at least three reasons.

First, Minister Teo’s portrayal that countries with UI “usually have persistently high unemployment “ is inaccurate at best and misleading at worst.

Of the 27 member OECD developed countries, 25 operated an unemployment insurance systems including many countries with low unemployment eg Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan including some much more competitive export economies with lower unemployment than Singapore ( Germany and Japan ).

Second, there is little evidence of an inefficient reduction in incentive to work in properly designed UI systems as Minister Teo claims . In fact, the labour market evidence shows that UI for about 3 months enables optimum job search that prevents workers from jumping at the first job that may not be such a good match for their skills or experience.

Third, Minister Teo seems oblivious to the trend that artificial intelligence is already increasingly replacing both unskilled and skilled workers and consigning them to a gig economy of much more frequent job shifts, often with lesser paying work.

There are currently an estimated 25-30,000 households who fall into absolute poverty at any one time because of such involuntary unemployment. Without an automatic unemployment protection system , many fall through the cracks of our Commcare and skills retraining systems.

Not putting in place an intelligent unemployment protection system is thus short sighted, inhumane and just poor manpower policy, imho.

More at https://www.facebook.com/lamkeong.yeoh/posts/3512139472194428

But not having unemployment insurance is a Hard Truth and PAP ministers die die must hold onto. It’s not a matter of economic pragmatism.

The Hardest Truth: I’ve blogged before that the PAP doesn’t need that many smart people as it follows most of the Economist’s prescriptions (except on hanging, drug legalisation, free media and a liberal democracy): PAP’s bible challenges “market-based solution”)

Hard Truths

How PAP can make S’poreans happier but won’t

Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST

The PAP way is the American corporate way

We have to move on: Moving on from Hard Truths To Hard Choices.

The problems are

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins

Wuhan virus: Why electricity prices sure to collapse

BP chief financial officer Brian Gilvary said that he believed the latest virus could slash oil demand growth globally by 40% his year. The slowdown in economic activity due to coronavirus could take out 5-7% of China’s LNG demand in February, according to S&P Global Platts.

This prediction will come thru

Electricity tariffs will drop because oil prices have fallen from around US$65 to below US$55. China is not buying oil. Related post: Why MSM no kanna POFMA for spreading fake news?

Wuhan virus: Look on the bright side

Where S’pore is not too exposed to China

S’pore’s a very open economy. But I was surprised to learn that like M’sia and Vietnam, we are not that dependent on China for electrical and electronic components. China’s the world’s largest exporter.

We are below world’s average. India despite considering China as its geopolitical rival (Chinese think Indians are deluded) are the 5th most dependent country: all those cheap made in India smartphones are assembled from Chinese imports.

Of course this doesn’t mean that places like Vietnam, S’pore and M’sia will not be hurt by China’s slowdown. MNCs from these countries are large exporters of  electrical and electronic components to China.

I’ll try to find a chart showing this.

What if GST goes up today?

I’ve predicted sometime back that GST will not go up this yr: Double confirm: No GST rise this yr.because the economy is weak.

Already, economic forecasts have been slashed:

After seeing its economy grow at a decade-low of 0.7 per cent last year, Singapore is expecting possibly even slower growth in 2020 and has downgraded its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast amid concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

Economic growth for this year is expected to come in at around 0.5 per cent, the mid-point of a new estimated range of between -0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Monday (Feb 17).

The previous forecast range announced last November was 0.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

Constructive, nation-building CNA

If the PAP govt, die die insists that GST must go up because as PAP supporter Grace Yeo‎ puts it

It’s a no brainer to be populist and say, tax less and give more. BTW, not increasing the GST is not even a new idea. For years and years, politicians hv campaigned against increasing of prices. I can also say to the government too. Mr Government, please don’t increase the GST or for that matter, any direct or indirect taxes. Also, give more and more money to help Singaporeans defray costs of living and to live a better quality of life, especially to the poor, the needy, the vulnerable, and the disadvantaged, and those who are suffering under unforeseen and uncontrollable distress. There, I hv said it – without much thinking and it’s highly popular and appealing, isn’t it? A non-political novice will propose solutions on how to generate more revenue and/or increase net investment returns (NIR). In addition, it’s one thing to get the private sector to fund Changi Airport Terminal 5 and in doing so, cede a degree of control to the private sector, but quite another to look into how to manage and control possible fallouts, including both intended and unintended consequences from having a public-private sector partnership. More importantly, what’s key right now is winning the battle against the virus … The time has come to compel our people to make hard, deep and inconvenient changes, including re-skilling, up-skilling, deep-skilling and multi-skilling themselves (quoted from the NTUC) and such changes will bring about unhappiness and dissatisfaction from many quarters of society …

the recent fall in the S$ will be “peanuts”: S$ tanks as GDP forecasts slashed and Why has M$ strengthened against S$?.

Japan increased its version of GST by 2 points in October last year and the result was that annualised GDP fell by a much steeper than expected 6.3% in October-December 2019.

Japan’s economy shrank at the fastest rate in five years at the end of 2019 as it was hit by a sales tax rise, a major typhoon and weak global demand.

As the PAP 4G needs 65% of the popular vote, I doubt they would listen to Grace Yeo‎ who die die advocates GST going up this yr even though when China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care.

PAP $G leaders not as stupid as her.

With fans like her, the PAP needs enemies like Mad Dog, Lim Tean, Goh Meng Seng, Tan Kin Lian, Tan Jee Say and that guy on Finland’s dole: Anti-PAP activists loi hei wish.

 

 

S$ in intensive care

The u/m currencies the fragile, vulnerable Wuhan flu currencies.

 

Related posts:

S$ tanks as GDP forecasts slashed

China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care with Thailand, HK, M’sia and Korea dying.

Why has M$ strengthened against S$?

Why has M$ strengthened against S$?

Last week, the Singapore dollar fell below the RM3 mark for the first time in about a year after our said central bank said there was sufficient room for the Singapore currency to ease as the Wuhan virus hits the economy: S$ tanks as GDP forecasts slashed

It’s now at M$2.98.

Bit surprising that the M$ has strengthened against S$ and outperformed it vis-a-vis the US$ because while S’pore is intensive care when China sneezes, M’sia dies: China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care.

Ang moh investors were net sellers of all things M’sia since 2018 when Tun came into power and are so going into this crisis, they very underweight M’sian assets. Hence had nothing much to sell. They were also especially overweighted S’pore because of the HK crisis. And so had a lot to sell to get to an underweight position.

Tun must be happy.

 

 

 

S$ tanks as GDP forecasts slashed

Because: China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care.

As an example of the slashing of forecasts, MayBank lowered S’pore’s GDP forecast by 38%.

MayBank’s highly respected local economist lowered his 2020 GDP growth forecast for S’pore from 1.8% to 1.1%. He said the virus outbreak and travel restrictions would hurt tourism and retail, while disruptions to China’s supply chain would have knock-on effects for manufacturers. Other economists also saying the same thing.

Meanwhile there was continued selling of the S$. It was down 0.6% against the US dollar by Wednesday afternoon in London according to the FT. It fell 0.9% earlier: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/singapore-says-monetary-policy-unchanged-022532822.html

It’s the third worst-performing currency in region this year, down 2.3%, according to Bloomberg. The Thai baht is the worst-performing currency in the region this year, according to Bloomberg, down 3% against the US dollar. Rupiah is the second worst-performing.

Think PAP govt dares raise GST this yr? Double confirm: No GST rise this yr

 

Double confirm: No GST rise this yr

Thanks to the Wuhan virus.

Remember you heard this here first.

During the recent CNY gatherings of the elites, I put my finger to the hot air being emitted from the BS I was smelling and sensed that the consensus was that the PAP govt would really, really like to defer the two points GST rise penciled in for this yr to make sure that it gets 65% of the popular vote needed to show that they have the people’s mandate.

Anything less is F9.

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I wrote this late last yr

A GE late this year as expected by me in 2018 (Akan datang: GE in late 2019) even with vote losers like pending GST rises etc (PAP is like one armed swordsman) would have resulted in a PAP victory of around 62% (How the PAP can get 62% is explained in PAP fighting for every last vote).

But 65%? No way without more dropping GST rise ( How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote) or more goodies. Well a GST rise is set in stone, so got to have more bribes goodies, all with our own money.

Why no GE in Dec 2019

——————————————————–

Only the dogmas that the Hard Truth (Or BS?) that the PAP does not do populist policies ever

By addressing the issue of affordability, will he implicitly be sending the message that he is be ditching dad’s Hard Truth that populism is bad**?

Not if Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, the minister in-charge of Our Singapore Conversation (OSC), is to believed. He told the media this week that OSC is not a knee-jerk, “populist” policy-making exercise. It is not a “major meet-the-people session”, with the govt collating a wish list and then giving the people what they want. He emphasised that OSC does not sacrifice any strategic thinking on the part of the govt for the sake of showing empathy with the people.

Analysing PM’s coming rally speech

and does not admit making mistakes:

All the POFMA orders flying around before an expected GE next yr, reminded me that George Orwell

wrote that because totalitarian regimes insist that the leadership is infallible, history must be perpetually rewritten in order to eliminate evidence of past mistakes. Totalitarianism thus “demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.” Orwell added darkly that “to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country”; one simply had to surrender to certain habits of thought.

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/12/04/is-liberalism-really-kaput

Why PAP never admits to mistakes?

(Related post: Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng)

were preventing the PAP govt from doing what it wanted to do. Ownself sabo ownself.

Well given that the Wuhan Virus will hurt the economy (China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care), this gives the PAP govt a really good excuse to change its mind. PM or Heng can reasonably say:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?

Supposedly said by Keynes.

Don’t believe me? The way is being prepared by ministers and the constructive, nation-building media

ST Lite headline:

Worst hit by Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, tourism and transport sectors to get targeted help in Budget: DPM Heng

ST headline:

Key focus on protecting jobs and helping businesses: Chan Chun Sing

What better way to help tourism and transport sectors and help businesses in general, and protect jobs than by deferring the GST rise until the the economy recovers?

And still give out the Budget”goodies” (our money leh): sweeteners originally meant to make palatable the GST rise. “See how generous we are”.

Christmas 2020 and Chinese New Year 2021 will come early in Feb 2020

We’ll still get a GST rise but maybe next year the world economy will be worried by political turmoil in China as Xi has to explain why he has not lost the mandate of heaven, despite repeated market crashes, African swine fever, the Wuhan virus and H1N1 swine fever. There are credible reports of reports of the last occurring in China.

Other reasons that the PAP will get the votes to take it over the 65% pass mark:

• In a crisis, Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?
• Anti-PAPpists caught lying: Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks
• PAP listens: China ban after 100,000 sign petition asking for ban

Vote wisely.

 

 

 

 

China sneezes, S’pore in intensive care

Koreans will die.

So will the Hongkies, Thais and M’sias. S’poreans, Japanese, Peenoys, Viet Kong, Diggers and Indons will be in the intensive care unit.

 

The only people happy in S’pore are those who wish S’pore ill: Fake news that S’poreans panicking about shortage of masks.

Anti-PAP activists and cybernuts love the opportiunity, or so they think, of spreading more fake news to sabo the PAP govt.

But they are deluded. Tom, I’ll post why the PAP govt will now win bigely this GE. The 4G leaders will get the 65% of the popular vote that they need.

Remember that I was negative about the 4G team getting 65% of the popular vote: Ground is not sweet for an early 2020 GE.

Academic talking cock about the economy

Commentary: Is low growth the new normal for Singapore?

Hoon Hian Teck is Professor of Economics at the Singapore Management University. 

A shrinking citizen workforce, the law of diminishing returns to capital, and the time needed to bring about a culture shift towards indigenous innovation all portend low growth for Singapore. Is there any reason to remain optimistic?

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/low-economic-growth-new-normal-singapore-budget-12261518

He then goes into great detail about the

shrinking citizen workforce, the law of diminishing returns to capital, and the time needed to bring about a culture shift towards indigenous

which inevitably lead to low growth.

I couldn’t disagree with his analysis, even if I tot he overdid the gloom: remember I’m invested in shares here and got landed property here.

He ends his gloomy analysis

IS THERE A CASE FOR OPTIMISM?

A shrinking citizen workforce, the law of diminishing returns to capital, and the time needed to bring about a culture shift towards indigenous innovation all portend low growth for Singapore. Is there any reason to remain optimistic?

The answer is yes. Singapore has been able to achieve domestic social and political consensus to reinvent itself to ride on opportunities thrown up by the global economy, and find new ways of overcoming our constraints.

When it faced a severe recession in 1985, caused in part by wages running ahead of productivity, workers accepted a 15-percentage point cut in employers’ CPF contribution rate, which was gradually restored.

Having recovered, workers’ skills were developed to take advantage of the growing financial sector fuelled by funds flowing into a booming region from 1989 to 1998.

Through government initiatives announced over recent Singapore Budgets, firms have also been encouraged to embrace automation, digitalisation and reskilling, and rely less on foreign labour in a manpower-lean economy.

More recently, bold plans for the Greater Southern Waterfront after the ports are relocated away from Tanjong Pagar to free up valuable land to be redeveloped in the downtown region were announced just last year.

So Singapore can surely find the necessary gumption to reinvent itself again and overcome its constraints.

In a u-turn from the numbers-driven analysis he was using in explaining why the economy was growing slowly, he introduced non-quantitative factors to explain why we’ll soon have strong growth. As an intelligent being would say “Does not compute”. It doesn’t does it?

His concluding optimistic remarks remind me of the use of Deus ex machina. This

is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Wikipedia

I get the impression that he suddenly realised that he doesn’t wanted to be accused by a PAP MP as someone “who does not wish S’pore well”, anti-PAP activists PJ Thum and Kirsten Han were so accused (and rightly so): Kirsten Han trying to defecate herself and PJ out of self-made crater. If he were branded as wishing S’pore ill like them, he could lose his job. They had nothing to lose, unlike him.

So he u-turned and ended up as yet another constructive, nation-building academic PAP running dog (Apologies to the real dogs).

Mean of me to call our academics running dogs (Apologies to the real dogs again)?

BSing academics protected from fake news law?

Local academics propogate fake news?

Fixing the Oppo: Constructive, nation-building media and academics at work

What do you think?

Apologies also to a regular reader who was a head of a department in an atas faculty in NUS. People there don’t need to be PAP running dogs (Apologies to the dogs again) to get ahead. Sheer brain power only.

 

Another reason to introduce minimum wages

Advocates claim that minimum wages help boost earnings in industries with too little competition, and prevent workers from being exploited. But critics (think our very own PAP govt) maintain that, by setting an arbitrary floor on pay, minimum wages reduce overall employment, particularly among low-skilled workers, and that it will make S’pore less competitive. But then How come HK got minimum wages but more competitive?

The evidence is mixed.

Now a group of epidemiologists at Emory University in Atlanta say higher minimum wages are linked to lower suicide rates i.e. the minimum wage helps reduce suicide rates in the US: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/20/higher-minimum-wages-are-linked-to-lower-suicide-rates

Related reading:

Subsidising wage rises good, Minimum Wage bad

Improve Workfare not press for Minimum Wage

4% growth for China/ Still want to raise GST?

Official figures show that the world’s second largest economy expanded by 6.1% in 2019 from the year before – the worst figure in 29 years. China has faced weak domestic demand and the impact of a trade war with the US.

But things could get worse for China and the world.

China’s GDP could only grow at 4%.

State Grid, China’s largest utility company, is bracing itself for the rate of economic growth to fall to as low as 4% the next five years in the world’s second-largest economy. If anybody has the finger on the economy’s pulse, it is the largest utility company that supplies the power needed to power industry and homes.

If this comes about, bad for world trade and really bad for us: S’pore: the canary in the coalmine

Still want to raise GST, PAP govt with so much uncertainty? But die die must want to be one-arm swordsman: PAP is like one armed swordsman.

The PAP govt should do itself and us a favour, don’t raise GST until there’s more clarity on global economic growth: How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote.

Kee Chiu, Chee trying to fix Heng? Incompetent? Honest mistake?

Usually what gets anti-PAP ang moh tua kees and cybernuts into orgasms of frenzy are ignored by hard working S’poreans. But Bayee’s Pritam’s question in parly and Kee Chiu and his sidekick’s response* has had hard working S’poreans upset.

The following piece that appeared in TRE reflects very accurately what PMETs are saying around their office water coolers and pantries, blue-collar workers are saying in their factoty canteens, and S’poreans in general are saying around their dining tables, and in food courts and kopi tiams.

We can get you the numbers, but you don’t need to know

I refer to this article on Today.

Basically, in Parliament on 6th January, the PAP declared that Singaporeans are getting more jobs, 60,000 local employment. Mr Pritam Singh requested for the specific number in terms of PRs and Singaporeans.

However, Mr Chan Chun Sing vehemently refused to answer that question.
1) Mr Chan deflected the question, and instead questioned Mr Singh’s need for accurate, factual data.
2) Mr Chan made a one-sided universal declaration that ALL Singaporeans are getting good jobs, and ALL Singaporeans are getting increased wages. And he did so by not providing numbers to back his claim.
3) Mr Chan insinuated that there should be no divide between Singaporeans and PRs. He might as well just say out loud there is no difference between a Singaporean and a PR.

My thoughts:
I think it is fairly disturbing that ministers and MPs can evade answering actual questions, and taichi their way out of it. We’re asking for factual numbers and figures! Not a grandfather story! Just answer the goddamned question!

Secondly, we are just supposed to just believe what Mr Chan says at face value, without any evidence? If you are so confident of what you say, you wouldn’t mind showing us the numbers, right?

As Singaporeans, we have the right to accurate and factual information. We cannot allow ourselves to be denied of the truth, just because some politician thinks it is not beneficial for us to know!

We have a right to demand full disclosure of such reports.

Angry Citizen

Given that the PAP is struggling to get 65% of the vote (Ground is not sweet for an early 2020 GE) one can reasonably wonder if Kee Chiu and Chee are trying to sabo Heng, the PM in waiting?

But maybe the MTI ministers are juz incompetent? Or are are making an honest mistake?

What do you think?

Whatever, they should realise that S’poreans (not juz the really hard core 30%ers) are suspicious of the PAP govt’s FT policies: see point 17 in table in Not Fake News: S’poreans still very satisfied with PAP govt.

Why 65% of the popular vote is so impt to the PAP: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

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*Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Chee Hong Tat (Kee Chiu’s side kick in MTI) saka his boss on 8 Jan in a Facebook post to caution against “driving a wedge in society” by differentiating between PRs and citizens, warning that all attempts to drive a wedge between different groups in society should be rejected, calling for people to “stand resolute” against efforts to “stir fear and hatred for political gain”.

Ground is not sweet for an early 2020 GE

The advance estimate for GDP growth in 2019 is 0.7%. In general, economists are guessing that 2020 GDP growth will be around 1.4% based on the world economy doing slightly better than last year. True 1.4% is double  last yr’s figure, but its a guess and its from a low base and the effects will only be felt in late 2020 or 2021 (early next yr is the latest for GE), if the guess is accurate. And it presupposes that there’s no serious conflict in the Gulf that will disrupt oil supplies and that Trump and Xi cool their trade war.

 Analysts expect a “tepid recovery” for the Singapore economy in 2020, after advance GDP estimates released Thursday pointed to the worst growth performance for the city state since the global financial crisis in 2009.

… analysts say growth momentum is expected to pick up gradually in the coming quarters.“Despite the lacklustre growth performance, the economy is slowly getting out of the woods,” says Irvin Seah, a senior economist at DBS Group Research in a flash note [last week]

… forecasts that Singapore will register GDP growth of 1.4% in 2020, but notes that this is still below its “potential growth rate” of around 2.5%.“Signs of a turnaround are emerging, but recovery could be weak,” Seah says. “

Meanwhile at Oxford Economics,

economist Sung Eun Jung agrees that while the external outlook has improved, the risk of relations between US and China deteriorating again “remains substantial”.

“On the domestic front, labour market conditions are softening as firms are more cautious about hiring and unemployment rate has been rising steadily since last year,” Sung adds.

Like DBS, Oxford Economics is also maintaining a forecast of 1.4% GDP growth for Singapore in 2020 following the release of the advance estimates.“We still forecast a fiscal expansion in 2020, including some targeted measures to help offset the planned GST (goods and services tax) hike and support ailing industries,” Sung says.

https://www.theedgesingapore.com/capital/singapore-economy/analysts-look-forward-better-year-ahead-singapores-2019-gdp-sinks-slowest

The size of the victory in the coming GE (expected shortly after the Feb Budget ) will therefore depend on the Budget goodies (Why no GE in Dec 2019) and how cock the Oppo are (Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G).

Reminder 1: Heng’s 4G team needs 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

Reminder 2: Not Fake News: S’poreans still very satisfied with PAP govt

Why no GE in Dec 2019

The u/m news from the constructive, nation-building CNA reminded me of what Secret Squirrel told me on Christmas Day.

Singapore’s monthly manufacturing output decreased in November after seeing an uptick in the previous months, data from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) showed on Thursday (Dec 26).

Manufacturing output fell 9.3 per cent in November on a year-on-year basis. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, production went down 9.4 per cent.

The largest decrease in November was in the electronics cluster, which fell 20.9 per cent. The entire cluster saw a decline in output, except for infocomms and consumer electronics, which grew 29.8 per cent, and data storage segments, which grew 23.1 per cent.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/singapore-manufacturing-output-november-edb-12212126

Secret Squirrel told me that the reason GE would be delayed until after the the Budget is that the ground is not sweet for a PAP victory of 65%+, without a lot more bribes goodies, using our own money. Reminder: Heng’s 4G team needs 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

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Problems for the PAP govt

Economy: “Only cold spell coming, but not Winter”and S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP? But to be fair to the PAP: IMF affirms support for PAP policies.

The headwinds other than a lousy economy going into a GE:

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

— Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng

—————————————

A GE late this year as expected by me in 2018 (Akan datang: GE in late 2019) even with vote losers like pending GST rises etc (PAP is like one armed swordsman) would have resulted in a PAP victory of around 62% (How the PAP can get 62% is explained in PAP fighting for every last vote).

But 65%? No way without more dropping GST rise ( How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote) or more goodies. Well a GST rise is set in stone, so got to have more bribes goodies, all with our own money.

Btw, how a really dumb TRE cybernut die die insists that TRE not wrong when I wrote: TeamTRE doesn’t know when school holidays begin?/ How Wankers can hold Aljunied

ganeshsk:

October 15, 2019 at 5:33 pm

Well CI technically possible.

Tis school technically closes on 14th October 2 days prior to official date and it is pTM and prize giving for class toppers.

So the nomination the campaign period 10 days might just take place from 9 th of November. and we can election on 17th November.

So I didn’t think TRE got it wrong.

Now a days the void decks are being used more than the school but I am sure the scheduled MOE volunteers will be excused early to attend to election formalities if need be.

 

How to lessen GST impact rise and promote cashless payments

This is my constructive, nation-building X’mas present for our millionaire ministers and senior civil servants, wrapped in the form of a suggestion.

We know that in the coming Budget sure got incentives to make us less unhappy with 2 points GST rise.

Here’s an idea we can copy and paste from Japan both to lessen the impact of GST rise on consumer spending and, as a bonus, promote cashless payments. Remember Brownfacegate? Brownfacegate: Fake indignation? and Brownfacegate: The inside story?.

Its consumption tax (GST) was hiked by 2 points on October 1. Customers who transacted cashlessly in SMEs, are able to receive reward points to offset the tax increase.

 The response by the SMEs, revealed the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Monday has been unexpectedly strong. Since May, when the scheme was first mooted, 940,000 shops, restaurants and other consumer-facing businesses have registered for the scheme — a process that forced many of them to bring cashless payment terminals into their stores for the first time.

FT

And Japan is not the only govt. From next year, the Italian govt plans to offer financial bonuses to those who use cards or other electronic payment systems.

Btw, FT also reported that a Nomura survey of why businesses were reluctant to introduce cashless payment terminals found that the answer was high fees. Hawkers were KPKBing here too when e-payments were trialled in a few hawkers’ centres. Any idea of what happened since then? I never patronised any of them.

Queen Jos keeps on talking cock

This time on job market.

Queen of sex in small spaces was recently reported as saying

Current downturn unlike previous crises, as job market still holding up

Constructive, nation-building MediaCorp’s freesheet.

The piece went on

The ongoing economic downturn is unlike previous crises that Singapore has gone through — the job market is not as badly affected and there are still good job opportunities in certain sectors, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/current-downturn-unlike-previous-crises-job-market-still-holding-josephine-teo?fbclid=IwAR1Aof8zcQG48EKdg6hozCRnIxVGv_N9aYRS9-B6A34Oe0M13G5LUb0gDRE

Problem with her comments is that under the headline

Singapore property market faces risks from unsold units, uncertain economy: MAS

the equally constructive, nation-building CNA reported

“Ongoing uncertainties in the economic outlook and a softening labour market could negatively affect households’ incomes and their demand for property,” MAS wrote.

Already, hiring sentiment has turned cautious amid the growth slowdown, with fewer job vacancies than unemployed persons. It also noted that the number of workers placed on short work-week or temporary layoff has trended upwards, even as retrenchments remained low.

“Amid the possibility of an extended period of sluggish GDP growth, wage increases are expected to ease, which could weaken households’ debt servicing ability,” MAS said.

Sounds like the central bank disagrees with Queen Jos.

And there’s even worse news for those mortgaged up to their eyeballs fearful of losing their jobs or suffering pay cuts: falling property prices and negative equity

There is also further housing supply coming on stream, even as the stock of launched but unsold units builds up.

Figures from the report showed unsold units from launched projects, excluding executive condominiums, doubled to 4,377 units in the third quarter. This compares with 2,172 units the same period a year ago.

This increase is likely be exacerbated in the medium term, MAS said, as developers redevelop and launch projects on the flurry of en bloc sites sold between 2017 and 2018.

The central bank warned that having more unsold inventory “could place downward pressure on prices in the medium term, if unaccompanied by a corresponding rise in demand”.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/mas-financial-stability-review-property-risks-unsold-homes-12133586

But as I said in TRE cybernuts and central bank singing from the same song sheet the solution is simple:

 [J]ust remove Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and prices will cheong.

Vote wisely. But the problem is

“Is a coalition that includes Mad Dog, Lim Tean and Meng Seng a better alternative to the 4G?”

Look at Lim Tean’s record. Still no jobs rally after collecting money in 2017 for rally, and no picture, no sound after collecting money to sue CPF yrs ago: Finally Lim Tean called to account on a “broken promise”. To be fair, he did deliver on defamation video two years late. But it was BS.).

Is there really a better alternative to PAP 4G?

PRC tourists sleeping on the streets?

Singapore’s tourism receipts declined 3.0% in the first half of 2019 despite a 1.3% increase in the number of international visitors. I note that China’s tourist receipts were down 10% despite visitor arrivals being up 7% in Q219.

Are the PRC tourists sleeping rough, in the streets? Because accommodation spending was the main drag in Tourism Receipts, with the sector suffering a 13% decline in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.

Whatever, we seem to be attracting the low quality Chinese tourists, not those who shop for LVMH, Richemont (owns Cartier) or  Kering (owner of Gucci) products. And who don’t even patronise the slot machines at the casinos.

They all go to Geylang to patronise other PRCs?

TRE cybernuts and central bank singing from the same song sheet

A recurring tune that TRE’s cybernut-in-chief “Oxygen” and his pals (like “Jihadist Joe” aka “Bapak”) shout is that the property market sure to crash and that when that day comes, they shout that they’ll be having orgasms of joy seeing their fellow S’poreans (even anti-PAP voters) suffer. Problem is that they’ve been predicting this since when TRE started (circa 2007, I think).

So my conclusion in reading the u/m headline from the usual constructive, nation-building CNA is that MAS must have been infiltrated by said cybernuts. Time for the ISD to investigate senior central bank officials for being anti-PAP?

Singapore property market faces risks from unsold units, uncertain economy: MAS

Singapore’s property market faces “potential downside risks” from a large supply of unsold units in the medium term and an uncertain economy, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Thursday (Nov 28).

In its annual Financial Stability Review, the central bank urged prospective buyers, especially households that are highly-leveraged, to be mindful of risks and remain prudent.

Property firms that have built up high levels of leverage and hold large unsold inventory should also exercise prudence …

These concerns come against the backdrop of a moderation in the private residential property market following the cooling measures introduced in July last year.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/mas-financial-stability-review-property-risks-unsold-homes-12133586

Don’t they know there’s a GE (My prediction in 2018 Akan datang: GE in late 2019) and GST rise (How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote) round the corner?

Seriously, just remove Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and prices will cheong.

Related posts:

Forgot (ignored?) asset inflation?

Look at our private housing, it’s expensive:

Buying homes the billionaire way: two luxury homes are better than one

Why S$73.8m flat is a steal

Why S’pore is so shiok for private property investors

And even in private property there are govt controls

Ang moh’s great insight on property mkt

PAP whacks greedy pigs

 

 

 

 

Water: Why Tun should thank S’poreans

He should thank us for being so generous with our money. But he’s a born ingrate. Look at what he’s doing to ensure that Anwar doesn’t become his successor, as he promised. He made that promise when he needed Anwar’s help to become PM.

Seriously, further to What Tun and our alt media don’t tell us about the water supply from Johor, do you know S’poreans with more $ then sense are spending at least S$81.6m annually buying water from M’sia? We roughly import 204 million bottles of water and at an price of say $0.40 cents a bottle, we are giving Tun money for old rope, as the saying goes. According to United Nations trade data, most of Singapore’s bottled water is imported from M’sia.

Singapore imports about 17 million bottles of water per month from Malaysia alone, Mr Masagos Zulkifli said on Monday (Nov 4), citing latest figures compiled by the Singapore Food Agency.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-import-bottled-water-malaysia-12062780

The Minister for Environment and Water Resources was speaking in a written reply to Nominated Member of Parliament Mohamed Irshad.

What this means is that we are importing 204 million bottles a year and this costs us S$81.6m assuming a 600ml bottle retails at S$0.40 (It often costs more). F&N and Coca-Cola the companies manufacturing the most popular varieties here source water from West M’sia and a 600ml bottle from the former is S$0.36 cents and a bottle from the later costs S$0.40.

————————————————

The price of 1 litre of tap water in Singapore? $0.00274.

https://blog.seedly.sg/bottled-water-brand-price-evian-volvic-badoit-why-so-expensive/

——————————————————————

In 2016, CNA reported (reconfirmed earlier this yr) that F&N and Coca-Cola – the companies manufacturing the most popular varieties here – sourced tap water from West M’sia.

[A] significant number – including market leaders like F&N’s Ice Mountain and Coca-Cola’s Dasani – are sourced from public water supplies. These two brands made up more than half of the bottled water sales volume in Singapore last year, according to Euromonitor data.

When contacted, F&N confirmed that Ice Mountain sold in Singapore “is sourced and packed in Malaysia from tap water”, while Coca-Cola said that Dasani produced for the Singapore market comes from “the local water supply at (its) facility in Malaysia”. Both companies also said they have multiple purification processes in place, which distinguishes their “pure drinking water” from tap water.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-s-s-134m-bottled-water-addiction-7633342

The 2016 article, focused on how demand for still bottled water was growing, went on sounding upset that S’poreans

are willing to pay as much as a thousand times more for bottled water when clean, drinkable tap water is readily available at a nominal charge has left some environmental advocates and experts scratching their heads.

A 600ml bottle of drinking water usually retails for about S$0.50 to S$1. According to PUB, the same amount of tap water only costs 0.1 cent, making it 500 to 1,000 times cheaper than bottled water. This price differential, while significant, is not sufficient to motivate consumers to move more to tap water, said Prof Ng, who is the executive director of the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute at NTU.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-s-s-134m-bottled-water-addiction-7633342

————————————————

Reminder

The price of 1 litre of tap water in Singapore? $0.00274.

https://blog.seedly.sg/bottled-water-brand-price-evian-volvic-badoit-why-so-expensive/

——————————————————————

Coming back to the minister and NMP, the NMP asked about the government’s plans to install more water dispensers and water coolers at places such as office buildings, shopping centres and public transport stations.

Minister said

Given that water from the tap in Singapore is perfectly safe to drink, we can and should definitely do more to reduce consumption of bottled water.

Minister

Hear, hear.

Minister should have added: “The price of 1 litre of tap water is $0.00274.”

 

 

 

 

Ever wondered why PM wants to build polders?

And not reclaim land the traditional pa’s way, using sand?

In his National Day Rally speech in August, PM talked of building polders along the eastern shoreline from Marina East to Changi. This would protect us from a sea-level rise while also allowing us to gain more land: “new land which we can use for housing and other purposes,” PM Lee said. What he didn’t say was that the land would be sold on 99-year leases, with the revenue going direct to the reserves.

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What are polders?

Polders are land below sea level reclaimed from the sea. They are constructed by first building walls around the area to be reclaimed from the sea and then draining water from it. Water levels in the polders are then controlled by drains and pumps. The Dutch are masters of polder building and maintaining them.

---

This is not the PAP govt’s way of copying* what worked in the past: think traditional land reclamation.  Once upon a time, there were hills in Bedok. Earth from these hills was used to reclaim what is now Marine Parade. Flats were then built (and sold on 99 year leases) on the Marine Parade reclaimed land and the now hill-less Bedok.

We soon ran out of local earth to use for reclamation and began importing sand from M’sia and Indonesia. As usual the govts there complained publicly that what we were doing broke their laws, but they quietly allowed the trade to go on so long as their exporters paid bribes. But we had to move on to import sand from Vietnam and Cambodia. There the govts kept quiet about the trade, so long as their exporters paid bribes. At least the govts were not hypocrites like Tun.

But the entire region is running out of sand to sell to

Singapore, a world leader in land reclamation.

The BBC continues

To create more space for its nearly six million residents, the jam-packed city-state has built out its territory with an additional 50 sq miles (130 sq km) of land over the past 40 years, almost all of it with sand imported from other countries. The collateral environmental damage has been so extreme that neighbouring Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia have all restricted exports of sand to Singapore.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand  Written earlier this month.

So we are going to build polders.

Related posts:

I predicted what he’d say: What PM will say in National Dally Rally speech

2025: LKY’s memorial unveiled

We can use 100% green energy by 2035 but won’t

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*Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh retired

 

 

S’pore: Bottom of class in Asean

Don’t believe me? Look at this table where MNCs relocating from China are going to.

To be fair, S’pore’s a developed city-state while the rest of Asean are third-world countries: including M’sia.

Btw, table also shows that PeenoyLand and Indonesia are “shithole” countries as far as manufacturing investments are concerned. Infrastructure problems, poor governance and bad labour and other laws ensure that MNCs don’t relocate there despite cheap labour and in Peenoy’s case, the use of some kind of English.

Problem that PAP doesn’t have even if curry puff prices etc have gone up by 7%

Regular readers will know that l like to compare the PAP with the CCP: one is the ruling party in a de-facto one-party state, the other the ruler in a de-jure one party state. Examples: Keeping power in a one-party state and Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng.

Well food inflation is not an issue here in the coming GE even if Old Chang Kee two weeks ago raised products by 10 cents across the board: roughly a 7% increase. My mum likes their curry puffs (now $1.60 each) while I like their various “balls”. Fortunately, I found another type of curry puff that my mum enjoys. Only $1 each but there may be an issue with consistent taste.

But food inflation is a problem in China. Data from China’s Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs shows  the price of pork has risen 170% compared with the same time last year Chicken prices have increased 40% and beef 20%.

Why food inflation has gone thru the roof in China: Grandpa Xi’s biggest headache.

Forgot (ignored?) asset inflation?

(Scroll down to read My Comments, if you are adverse to bullshit, from our constructive, nation-building media as they add spin to a MoF report .)

Singaporeans in their 40s better educated, earn more than past cohorts

Constructive, nation-building ST screamed

MediaCorp’s free BS sheet said

Younger Singaporeans in their 40s are more educated and better able to find jobs, they are earning and saving more, and they are on track to longer healthier lives than citizens between the ages of 50 and 79, a new report has found.

The report, released on Tuesday (Oct 22) by the Ministry of Finance (MOF), tracks how socio-economic outcomes have shifted across generations. The study tapped data from the Department of Statistics, and the Health and Manpower ministries.

The report, titled Key Socio-economic Outcomes Across Cohorts, studied a repertoire of socio-economic indicators: Educational attainment; employment and savings; residential-property ownership; health; and family support.

Younger Singaporeans fared better than those in the preceding generations across the majority of these indicators.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/younger-sporeans-better-able-find-jobs-earn-and-save-more-older-citizens-mof-report

My Comments

So what all this gushing to do with the price of eggs? Or rather with the standard of living when the price of assets go up a lot more than salaries?

Here are two examples.

When I started work in the late 70s, I my monthly salary was slightly more than $1000. If I had been married, we would not have been eligible for an HDB flat. If I were starting work today, my starting pay would be around $5,000. HDB’s eligiblity is now $15,000 a month (I think) for a married couple.

With $15,000 entry point the for “affordable” public housing, waz the point of faring “better than those in the preceding generations across the majority of “educational attainment; employment and savings; residential-property ownership; health; and family support”?

The rocketing costs of housing (public and private) have way exceeded the increases in salaries. A new HDB flat in the early 80s in Eunos was $30,000 or thereabouts. Now a BTO four room (actually smaller) could be between $300,000 and $500,000, depending on the locality. Have salaries increased like that? Only for PAP ministers.

And don’t get me started on car ownership. When I joined the workforce, the price of cars had just gone thru the roof (Remember COV?) but I could juz about own one on the never-never. My friend recently told me that his daughters, one a recently graduated doctor and the other an admin service officer (she’s a overseas merit scholar who graduated three yrs ago) can’t afford to own cars. They and their future husbands are saving for the deposit for HDB flats

Read Election goodies: proves the point that PAP needs to be spurred?, written before 2011 GE and remember to vote wisely.

We threw money at this guy?

To buy properties here?

EDB gifting billionaire money to cheong properties

Buying homes the billionaire way: two luxury homes are better than one

Ang moh who bot S$73.8m flat

Or employ S’poreans?

Only a few months ago I wrote

But if one is a fan of the PAP govt, one can argue that by giving him financial incentives to build his car in S’pore, EDB gets him to manufacture here (creating jobs and expertise), move his HQ here, and buy two properties: killing four birds with one stone.

EDB gifting billionaire money to cheong properties

A few months ago, our constructive, nation-building were trumpeting that S’pore’s a great place because Dyson decided to build his electric car here. Now the media is spinning like hell that his cancellation of his plan to build electric cars here is no big deal. Example CNA says:

WHAT IT MEANS FOR SINGAPORE

With the shuttering of Dyson’s automotive unit, plans for its maiden car plant in Singapore will be scrapped.

If Dyson’s plans had materialised, the plant could have brought about some benefits, said Maybank Kim Eng economist Chua Hak Bin.

“It was a different kind of manufacturing investment,” he said. “Dyson was a lot more futuristic and new tech so we wondered if it would bring parts of the supply chain, in terms of supporting industries, to Singapore.”

When Dyson announced its Singapore plans last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong took to Facebook to describe it as “one of the companies creating new and exciting opportunities here” and urged local engineers to “rise to the challenge”.

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing also posted on Facebook that he was “happy” about the announcement, as it reflected Singapore’s attractiveness as a base for investments in innovation.

The Economic Development Board, in its yearly report published in February, highlighted autonomous vehicles and smart mobility as one of its key priorities ahead, in a bid to ride on the crest of Dyson’s announcement.

The government agency was in “active negotiations or discussions” with a couple of other electric car makers so as to “build clusters”, its managing director Chng Kai Fong told Bloomberg during an interview in April.

In response to CNA’s queries on its strategy moving forward, EDB’s assistant managing director Tan Kong Hwee said Singapore remains interested in advanced manufacturing activities, including electric vehicles.

“We believe Singapore is well-positioned for activities that leverage on the deep skills of our workforce, the use of advanced technologies such as robotics and automation, and ecosystem of suppliers locally and in the region,” said the emailed response.

“Singapore’s proximity to the markets in Asia will also enable companies to capture growth opportunities in the region.”

The U-turn in Dyson’s plans is set to affect about 20 employees in Singapore. The company told CNA that it has “sufficient vacancies” to absorb most of those affected.

Dyson currently employs about 1,100 people in Singapore, with 350 of them being engineers.

While it may be a lost opportunity for Singapore to produce electric cars, economists think the scrapping of the plant will bring about minimal impact.

“Since the project was very much on the drawing board, I think there will be fairly minimal disruption to local labour force and supply chains,” said Mr Song.

He added: “It would have been a nice feather in the cap. But even without it, we haven’t done too badly going by the investment commitment numbers for the first half of the year.”

At almost S$8.1 billion, Singapore’s fixed-asset investment commitments during the first six months of 2019 already fall within the EDB’s full-year forecast of S$8 billion to S$10 billion.

This despite trade tensions and other global uncertainties slowing down economic growth.

Mr Rajiv Biswas, chief economist for Asia Pacific at IHS Markit, said Dyson has signalled its intention to continue expanding its operations here in Singapore.

“Dyson is expected to continue to develop R&D and technology segments related to electric vehicles, such as battery technology, robotics and artificial intelligence.

“Therefore Singapore’s manufacturing sector may continue to benefit from Dyson’s future R&D in a range of key high technology sectors,” he told CNA.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/dyson-hits-brakes-electric-car-what-the-shift-means-singapore-11992980

 

So what if we are the most competitive economy globally?

What has this to do with the price of pork?

Allianz CEO recently said: “S’pore market is a pond”

This put the ranking that S’pore is now the most competitive economy in the world, something our constructive nation-building media, and even anti-PAP alt media like TOC are trumpeting, into some kind of context and perspective.

Allianz is one of the world’s biggest reinsurers. The CEO was recently interviewed by the FT (Emphasis mine).

The group continues to be linked with more deals. In the last two weeks, it has been touted as a potential buyer for some of the Asian businesses put on the block by Aviva as well as insurance operations being sold by Spanish lender BBVA.

Mr Bäte is quick to play down any interest in Aviva’s Singapore operation. “The Aviva business is a good one but it is the smallest of four large ones in Singapore,” he said.

“Why would I buy a small follower business in a small country that is fully consolidated?”

FT

My point is that its meaningless to compare the economies of city-states (HK was third after the USA) to the economies of countries the size of continents, just as its meaningless to compares the economies of medium sized countries with those of city-states and continental countries like the USA, Russia and India.

Compare apples with apples, not with durians.

Where PAP is most vulnerable

In PAP is like one armed swordsman,I said I’d talk more about the election goodies.

“Ownself fund ownself”

We know the PAP has been doling out the goodies. But remember it’s all from yr own money.

In 2018, I wrote

[O]ver the last 10 years, Singapore’s net investment returns (NIR) contribution (NIRC) to the Budget has more than doubled from S$7 billion in FY2009 to an estimated S$15.9 billion in FY2018.

…

Waz this NIRC and NIR BS?

NIRC consists of 50 per cent of the Net Investment Returns (NIR) on the net assets invested by GIC, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings and 50 per cent of the Net Investment Income (NII) derived from past reserves from the remaining assets.

In other words, we spend 50 per cent of the estimated gains from investment, and put the remaining 50 per cent back into the reserves to preserve its growth for future use.

Associate Professor Randolph Tan is Director of the Centre for Applied Research at the Singapore University of Social Services, and a Nominated Member of Parliament.

Under PAP rule will S’pore become like UK or Venezuela?

In 2011 I wrote the following explaining how the money for our SWFs really came from us (When most probably Roy Ngerng was still wearing shorts and still coming to terms with his sexuality):

https ://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/how-we-fund-our-swfs/

https://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/property-sales-also-fund-our-swfs/

At the most, the PAP govt should be given credit for allowing S’poreans to spend more of our own money on ourselves. And even that was because in 2011, the voters gave the Pap an underwhelming ruling mandate to govern. And if not for Goh Meng Seng, his useful idiot Tan Kin Lian and Tan Jee Say (opportunists three), the PAP’s preferred presidential candidate would have lost to Dr Tan Cheng Bock.

So spread the word to those who think that they should be grateful to the PAP for the goodies that its our money the PAP is spending, but claiming credit for. Sadly, I doubt this will happen because cybernuts rather spread anti-PAP BS than the nuanced truth, even if the latter can persuade the PAP voters who think (about 35% of the voters: those who voted for Dr Tan Cheng Bock).

GST

In How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote, I pointed out that postponing the GST rise is the best to ensure a 65%+ share of the popular vote for the 4G leaders. But the 4G leaders think that the goodies doled out are sufficient for a 62% victory, if not more. (Btw, article lists most of the goodies)

Well this gives the Oppo a good chance to KPKB about the folly of increasing GST when the global and S’pore economy are weak, if not in recession (“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng). But will they do it? I have my doubts.

I’ll end with:

Countering PAP’s BS that taxes must go up

Welfarism the PAP way/ The last word on GST

which show that really the PAP govt doesn’t need the GST to fund future welfare spending.

 

 

PAP is like one armed swordsman

Or like a polo team or a golfer with good handicaps: giving away big handicaps but still winning big time all the time.

Let me explain. The PAP is going to into a general election with public transport rises in the offing*, the economy in recession and still not changing its mind on raising GST next yr at the earliest.

S’pore is forecast to dip into a recession (two quarters of -ve growth) in the current quarter ending Sept 30, say economists at Oxford Economics.

The economy is the worst hit in region amid spillovers from the US-China trade war, slower Chinese domestic demand and a downturn in the global electronics cycle, according to the latest ICAEW report published last Thursday.

Trade-dependent economies such as us, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have been the most vulnerable to the ongoing global economic uncertainties.

We, in particular, has been the worst hit in the region. The affluent city-state saw its GDP contracting 3.3% q-on-q in 2Q19, while the other three countries have been growing below potential growth.

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“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

————————————————————————-

Meanwhile, M’sia (Dr M’s Chinese running dog fix the data?)and Vietnam have outperformed the region, with a modest deceleration in export growth and resilient domestic demand. Vietnam has been a key beneficiary of the trade diversion from the trade war, and is forecast to grow 6.7% this year.

In How PAP can win 65% plus of the vote, I pointed out that postponing the GST rise is the best to ensure a 65%+ share of the popular vote for the 4G leaders. But so far there’s no indication of this happening.

Yet it’s sure to win at least 62% of the popular vote and might even reduce Oppo to only Hougang: PAP confident of winning back Aljunied. Dr Tan Cheng Bock will only become a NCMP for all his efforts.

So it’s like one armed swordsman, a high goal polo team or a great golfer: can give Oppo a lot of chance and still thrash the likes of Mad Dog, Lim Tean and Meng Seng.

The PAP sure is confident that its bribes goodies will win it at least 62% of the popular vote. Fyi, in PAP fighting for every last vote, I list most of the goodies. More on the goodies tom.

Vote wisely.

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*Someone on FB posted this

“Fare hike before GE so vote PAP out. No fare hike is election gimmick so vote PAP out.”

“PAP make mistake must be fabricated so vote PAP. PAP rectified mistake so vote PAP.”

 

 

 

Higher oil prices and regional economies

Regional currencies will weaken again US$. Trump will not be happy.

The probability or possibility (?) of weaker economic activity due to stronger prices oil should mean that our central bank is likely to allow the S$ to weaken. Meanwhile, central banks such as those in South Korea and Thailand are more likely to cut interest rates, weakening their currencies, analysts pointed out.

Analysts at Citi said because of Indonesia and India’s current account deficits and reliance on crude imports, the currencies of Indonesia and India were among those most exposed to oil shocks,

Good news for S’pore, PAP

No wonder the PAP will be calling a GE soon (Btw, trumpets pls: Written last yr saying GE in late 2019 – Akan datang: GE in late 2019 and Double confirm GE in 2019: Free lunches for two yrs for KPKBing hawkers)

The recent news that Dell and HP sales were lifted by PC sales is also good news for us and the PAP given that we are part of the Microsoft ecosystem (Missed smartphone boom, planners thinking about 2025 and When economy slows, not nec it’s ’cause FT supply ltd) not the Apple Apple/ Google  ecosystem: S’pore not part of Apple’s ecosystem.

Last week Dell’s latest quarter was boosted by strong sales of laptop and desktop computers, driving profits beyond expectations PC business posted record second-quarter revenue of U$11.7bn, a 6% gain year-over-year, as strength in sales to businesses offset weaker revenue for the consumer side.

The week before Rival HP also reported amid commercial demand. HP’s personal systems net revenue rose 3 per cent during the company’s fiscal third quarter, while total units grew 5%.

Btw: Impt of electronics to S’pore and rest of Asean

 

Fed chair: Not much Fed can do right now to help world economy

In addition to the Fed’s focus on balancing inflation against employment, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is dealing with two other sources of stress. Investors have been critical of how he communicates policy and The Donald has been demanding, more aggressive by the day, for more monetary accommodation via interest rate cuts and quantitative easing.

Powell has juz given Trump the finger.

Powell has now called the current era of Fed history the “emerging new normal”, and said it offered three challenges: low inflation, financial risks, and how the Fed can support economic growth when interest rates are already so low. The Fed, he added, “faces heightened risks of lengthy, difficult-to-escape periods in which our policy interest rate is pinned near zero.”

How to support economic growth when interest rates are already so low is an important question for central bankers all over the world. They had gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to among other things, discuss whether policy rates have any effect on the real economy.

With his historical timeline, Mr Powell offered an answer to both. The current era of slower growth, downward pressure on inflation, and lower interest rates is the consequence of long-term trends. And there is not much the Fed can do right now to help.

It’s a very pessimistic (and hawkish: nothing much can be done) speech.

Here’s how the Economist put it

He spoke of the difficulty the Fed faced in assessing and responding to Mr Trump’s trade war. And he mentioned that if interest rates globally remain near zero, then central banks may need new policies. But on the subject of the moment—what the Fed will do next—he gave little away. “We will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion, with a strong labour market and inflation near its symmetric 2% objective,” he said.

Mr Powell may have felt he could say little more, given the disagreement within the Fed. But both the recent minutes and the speech today devoted more words to the possibility that low rates might contribute to financial instability than has recently been the norm in the Fed’s discussions. That may be a sign of more determined opposition to additional easing than recognised hitherto.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/08/23/now-donald-trump-calls-the-feds-chairman-an-enemy

And btw, Trump’s not that dumb

At least one observer felt the hawkish overtones of the speech to be crystal clear. “As usual, the Fed did NOTHING!” Mr Trump tweeted after Mr Powell’s remarks. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” The president thus cast a longer shadow than the Tetons over the day’s events.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/08/23/now-donald-trump-calls-the-feds-chairman-an-enemy

How all this impacts us:

S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP?

Latest “bad” economic data is really “gd” news for PAP

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options

Hey Heng, HK annced help package for economy

Where’s ours? U waiting for election is it?

Remember the govt recently cut its growth forecast

Taking into account the global and domestic economic environment, as well as the performance of the Singapore economy in the first half of the year, the GDP growth forecast for 2019 is downgraded to “0.0 to 1.0 per cent”, from “1.5 to 2.5 per cent”, with growth expected to come in at around the mid-point of the forecast range.

MTI

HK has cut its 2019 growth forecast to between 0-1%, from 2-3%.

The HK govt announced a US$2.4bn economic support package on Thursday in a bid to ease headwinds.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan said it would include subsidies for businesses and the underprivileged as well as higher salary tax rebates. He stressed that the package was not in response to escalating political protests in the territory.

Latest “bad” economic data is really “gd” news for PAP

On the face of it, the latest manufacturing data is not good news for Heng especially if as expected the PAP govt wants to call a 2019 election and wants 65% of the 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

---

Problems for the PAP govt

Economy: “Only cold spell coming, but not Winter”. But to be fair to the PAP: IMF affirms support for PAP policies.

The headwinds other than a lousy economy going into a GE:

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

— Why one-party rule sucks for Xi, Lee and Heng

---

Manufacturing output experienced its sharpest fall in three-and-a-half years in June, as trade tensions and a global slowdown continue to weigh on our very open economy: the canary in the global economy.

Figures published by the EDB on Friday showed that manufacturing output fell by 6.9% during the month year on year, marking the sector’s worst monthly performance since December 2015.

But here’s the good news for Heng: analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an even worse drop of 7.9%. The economy did better than expected.

There’s even better news for Heng and his millionaire ministers: on a seasonally adjusted month on month basis, manufacturing output expanded by 1.2% in June. Remember Chris K, no friend of the PAP says that month-on-month figures or quarter-on-quarter numbers are a better guide to the probable direction of the economy.

Remember that Dr Tan Cheng Bock said that a worsening economy would make people worry about changing the status quo. Maybe his team read what I wrote in 2015, when the global economy wasn’t looking good: Time to worry? No worries, vote PAP like in 2001 LOL?

Likewise an improving economy make people worry about changing the status quo: I mean if Mad Dog gets in via a Coalition of the Spastics, the economy will get rabies. And rabies kills.

Btw, read Economy worse than PAP, MSM, alt media spin to understand why the PAP wins the propaganda war. With TOC’s bunch of economically illiterate Indian writers based in India, the PAP doesn’t need friends.

Economy worse than PAP, MSM, alt media spin

Singapore’s GDP growth drops to 0.1% in Q2, lowest since 2009’s Great Recession

TOC headline

Singapore’s GDP foretasted to grow by 0.1% in Q2 2019

TRE headline

Now these aped the MSM spin

Singapore economic growth slows to 0.1% in Q2, lowest in a decade

CNA

Singapore growth forecast risks sharper downgrade as Q2 GDP scrapes in at 0.1%

BT

Singapore’s economy grows just 0.1% in Q2, lowest in decade and worse than expected

ST

As Chris K KPKBed, the MSM headlines and opening paras put the best spin out a bad situation.

The reality is a lot worse

How bad things are

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis,  GDP contracted by 3.4%, way below the median forecast of 0.1% in a Reuters poll. This was a reversal from the 3.8% growth in the previous quarter and marked the worst quarter-on-quarter performance since the third quarter of 2012. The economy also registered its lowest growth in a decade, expanding just 0.1% on year in the second quarter, missing a forecast rise of 1.1%.

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

Question is why is alt media also helping out the PAP govt?

In case of TRE it’s likely that this was “an honest mistake”: TeamTRE are volunteers and stretched. And their cybernut readership is only booing at the PAP. Ask them to help out and they disappear.

In TOC’s case, the bunch of Indians based in India writing for TOC don’t know jackshit nor do they care about the S’pore economy.  TOC: A lot of bull.

At least FTs work here and pay GST and other taxes. Terry’s team work overseas. And TOC and its cybernut readers criticise the PAP govt for allowing in FTs?

 

New headache for Heng

Trump realises that S’pore’s freeloading off the US, and has told the US trade representative to fix the freeloading. The good news is that China and a whole host of countries are in the same situation.

In a memo to Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, on Friday, Mr Trump has yet again attacked the World Trade Organization, saying it allowed too many countries to claim the status of a developing economy and special treatment that is damaging the global trading system (i.e. damaging America).

As well as usual suspect China, he mentioned other countries that he thought should not be classified as developing., This included S’pore and two other   Asian city-states such as Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He also said Turkey, South Korea and Mexico claimed the status of a developing nation, even though they were part of the OECD group of advanced economies. On these three countries I agree with him that their status of “developing nation” is illogical.

What about India meh? Can developing nation afford to send robots to the moon, even if the rocket is rubbish? Failed to launch first time. Had to repeat. Secret Squirrel’s sidekick, Morocco Mole, says his Indian cousin twice removed says the fault lay with made-in-India software. And we still relying on Indian software expertise for projects like SingPass? Re: SingPass technical support versus that of OCBC and HSBC and SingPass sucks, really sucks. (To be fair to SingPass, it does work well after one gets into the system. But getting to that stage was a struggle as the posts show.)

He reminded the benefits that came from having developing economy status at the WTO, including procedural advantages in disputes, softer tariff cuts, the ability to maintain export subsidies and weaker commitments in negotiations.

Related posts:

If China withdraws behind the Great Walls

Why Sino-US Cold War is great for our economy

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter”

IMF affirms support for PAP policies.

Why Sino-US Cold War is great for our economy

It’ll do for our economy what the Vietnam War did for HK and our economies: spur economic growth

Further to Will the last US MNC leaving China switch off the lights, the charts below show almost nothing is made in America. Almost everything is made in China, and almost the rest in Asean i.e. countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and M’sia.

As the regional trading, financial heart and hi-tech manufacturing centre (Think Ang moh manufacturer employs more people here than in China and planning to employ a lot more) of Asean, we’ll benefit (Think Ang moh who bot S$73.8m flat).

Bang yr balls Oz-based TRE cybernut and funder “Oxygen”. Left S’pore a long time ago but still hates S’pore and wishes us ill. But still has CPF account. Used to evade Oz tax, it’s alleged by Secret Squirrel.

But of course short term we suffer: “Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng. 

Vote wisely. Remember: IMF affirms support for PAP policies.

 

 

IMF affirms support for PAP policies

True, its lowered its guess-estimate for this yr’s growth to 2% from 2.3% (made in May), but eat yr heart out Mad Dog, Lim Tean and other nutty anti-PAP types.

It said “investment is expected to pick up on digitalisation” and as businesses adopt new technologies.  “Over the medium term, growth should stabilize around 2.5 per cent, increasingly driven by modern services alongside other trade-related sectors.”

Vote wisely.

Reminder: How bad things are

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis,  GDP contracted by 3.4%, way below the median forecast of 0.1% in a Reuters poll. This was a reversal from the 3.8% growth in the previous quarter and marked the worst quarter-on-quarter performance since the third quarter of 2012. The economy also registered its lowest growth in a decade, expanding just 0.1% on year in the second quarter, missing a forecast rise of 1.1%.

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

Ang moh who bot S$73.8m flat

“In order to fix [something], you need a passionate anger about something that doesn’t work well,” James Dyson once said. He’s the man who bot a S$73.8m flat (Why S$73.8m flat is a steal). He is British and he manufactures and sells consumer products (hairdryers, vacuum cleaners and air filters) that are modern looking, well-engineered products. They are also very expensive, even if they are manufactured in the region and China, and not the UK.

Dyson, his private company, already has facilities here (and employs more people than in China — see Ang moh manufacturer employs more people here than in China and planning to employ a lot more) is to build the first of its electric cars in Singapore, choosing the country over the UK and China.

Dyson is planning to break into the automotive industry with a series of electric vehicles, using its existing knowledge in batteries and electric motors to give it the edge over established manufacturers.

What ST & CNA not saying abt Dyson’s move of HQ to S’pore

“The appeal of Singapore is zero tax”: How EDB got Dyson to come here

Electric cars will be made here?

“Only cold spell coming, but not Winter,” says Heng

I know economists are forecasting a recession (How bad things are described at the footnote*) but was surprised the constructive, nation-building ST Super-lite reported this fact in the following manner:

The Government is “not expecting a full-year recession at this point”, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Friday (July 12), but economists are warning that there is a high likelihood of a technical recession ahead.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/slowing-economy-q2-what-it-means-jobs-general-election-and-long-term-growth

Showing that it no ak Heng (Heng trying to make distinction between “a full year recession” and “technical recession”, using economists to show its disrespect isit? Or is ST Super-lite juz clueless?

Waz more the economists were given a lot of pixel space to comment:

WHAT ANALYSTS SAY

Economists said that Singapore’s economic prospects have clearly deteriorated due to downside risks such as the trade war, as well as the slowdown in China and global growth, and the worsening tech cycle downturn.

Nearly all analysts interviewed by TODAY said chances are high that there could be a technical recession, which is defined by two consecutive quarter-on-quarter declines.

Referring to the latest result as “a near stall”, OCBC bank’s head of treasury research and strategy Selena Ling noted that the first half of this year’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) year-on-year growth was at a “paltry” 0.6 per cent, the weakest first half growth since 2009.

It “clearly heightens the risk of a technical recession if growth momentum remains tepid going into the third quarter,” she said.

Mr Joseph Incalcaterra, HSBC Global Research’s chief economist for the Association of South-east Asian Nations, said that the weakness in Singapore’s GDP is “a harbinger of further growth deterioration across the region”.

He added: “What surprised us is how broad-based the deterioration was in Singapore, suggesting that unlike other neighbouring economies, domestic-facing sectors are not strong enough to offset external headwinds.”

Dr Chua and Ms Lee from Maybank Kim Eng, who had previously forecasted a “shallow” technical recession, have downgraded their outlook to a deeper one.

Retrenchments in manufacturing and trade-related sectors are likely to worsen as firms cut back on hiring amid rising uncertainties, they said.

Mr Alvin Liew, an analyst from United Overseas Bank, said that the official forecast could be downgraded to a range of 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent in August, highlighting the possibility that the Government’s 0.1 per cent year-on-year flash estimate for the second quarter could be revised into negative territory as well.

MTI’s forecast had put GDP growth at between 1.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent for the whole of 2019.

Remember that S’pore is seen as one of the barometers for global demand given its export-orientated economy: S’pore: the canary in the coalmine

Related posts: PAP: tropical White Walkers?

Winter’s here, and it’s an Antarctic winter

Winter is here, how big will the anti-PAP vote be?

Expect MAS to “manipulate” S$ lower

Even MSM tells us “Ground is not sweet economically”

Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options

—————————————————————————————————

*How bad things are

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis,  GDP contracted by 3.4%, way below the median forecast of 0.1% in a Reuters poll. This was a reversal from the 3.8% growth in the previous quarter and marked the worst quarter-on-quarter performance since the third quarter of 2012. The economy also registered its lowest growth in a decade, expanding just 0.1% on year in the second quarter, missing a forecast rise of 1.1%.

 

Gd news for the PAP

A survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore shows nearly half of multinationals in Asia think south-east Asia has become more attractive as a result of the US-China friction.

Cybernuts should remember that S’pore is in SE Asia, and the regional centre for shipping, air transport, finance and commerce.

TRE reader reminds TRE cybernuts of Hard Truth

If there’s a recession or worse, cybernuts suffer the the most barring those like long-term Oz resident Oxygen who still has a CPF account even though he demands “Return my CPF” saying CPF has no money. As a quitter, he can take his money out of CPF, but he doesn’t because it’s alleged he uses his CPF account as a means of cheating the Oz tax authorities, despite getting extensive welfare benefits. (Btw, he also dances on the graves of innocent children, TRE grave dancer doesn’t deny grave dancing, sneering at their parents for trusting the PAP.)

When TRE used this Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options, there was this response that the cybernuts will suffer the greatest:

Jman:
June 30, 2019 at 10:48 am (Quote)
This is the price we have to pay for the many nice things we have. We have some of the nicest stuff in the world, strong currency, high asset prices. Which puts our cost structure at the very top. And because of all that, only those Singaporeans who can perform to the top level, push things to the limit constantly, and run nonstop are going to get any decent life in such an environment.

But when the chips are down, we’d be the first to go. And then the weeding will start from the weakest among us and gradually work its way upward. And if it lasts long enough, eventually the top bosses and civil servants and ministers will also get hit. And many Singaporeans who are sour about public service pay will have their day.

But when we get to that day, these sour Singaporeans have to remember that they are at the bottom of the hull of the ship. And when the ship sinks so badly, there will be many Singaporeans who will be far deeper underwater and far worse off than they are today.

 

Weaker Yuen is not gd for us

Neil Mellor at BNY Mellon, makes the case that so long as a weaker renminbi does not ensue, “there could still be positive implications for markets if no agreement, or an agreement to continue talking, were to trigger another, and possibly more substantial, round of stimulus from Beijing”.

That could well boost regional currencies, including those for Taiwan, South Korea, S’pore and the Philippines. A broader rally would bolster commodities, the Australian dollar and eurozone equities.

Even MSM tells us “Ground is not sweet economically”

When I published this, Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options, I had not gotten round to scanning the latest headlines of our constructive, nation building media.

These were the headlines I had missed

Singapore’s 2019 economic growth likely to be weaker but global economy ‘not headed for a crash’, says MAS chief

MTI and MAS reviewing growth forecast, which was just slashed in May

And

As Singapore relooks 2019 projections, economists warn of possible technical recession

Nice to know that even economists are thinking like me: White Walkers expected at Changi In’l soon.

 

Ground is not sweet economically/ Authorities may have to do something but no gd options

Winter is here and the White Walkers are expected to land at Changi Int’l or the port any time soon.

S’pore’s recent gloomy economic data

— Electronics exports, a major driver of Singapore’s growth over the past two years, saw their biggest decline in more than a decade, hit by a global downturn in the semiconductor industry, data showed last week.

— Overall exports in May declined the most in more than three years as shipments to China slumped.

— The number of retrenchments rose 40% in the first quarter of 2019 from a year ago, driven by cuts in the manufacturing sector, according to official data released this month.

The authorities have to act if there’s going to be a GE this yr. Problem is that there are no good options.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore closely tracks data and there is a growing chance it may ease its currency-focused monetary policy for the first time in nearly three years.

Some say the central bank could even ease outside of its bi-annual meeting schedule as it did in January 2015 when it sought to counter deflationary pressures amid slowing growth.

But a more accommodative stance won’t be enough to reinvigorate the economy, said CIMB Private Banking economist, Mr Song Seng Wun, as a weaker Singapore dollar will not necessarily push up exports.

“Singapore businesses won’t suddenly become so competitive that we are going to be selling a lot more of our goods and services,” he said.

The finance ministry also has limited space to help given already-low tax rates, along with numerous incentives and cost offsets and an expansionary budget this year.

…

Further stimulus could come in the form of tax cuts and more rebates but factory operators aren’t waiting for the government to come to their rescue.

Reuters

Reuters also reported Mr Sam Chee Wah, general manager at Feinmetall Singapore, whose products are used for testing semiconductor wafers, as saying

[H]e’s been bracing for a tech slowdown since last year – holding back hiring and major capital investments. He’s now considering offering discounts or delayed payment terms to customers.

With US-China hostilities showing no signs of abating, Singapore will have to weather the storm for some time to come.

We are not out of the woods yet,” said Ms Sian Fenner, lead economist at Oxford Economics. “We haven’t seen the worst.”:

— Winter is here, how big will the anti-PAP vote be?

— S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP?

How 4G leaders going to get 65% of the popular vote( the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate)?

Remember

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

And there’s the promised 2 percentage points GST rise coming possibly, when the economy’s in a recession. This when the PAP govt has huge budget surpluses.

Next week, will forecast what the PAP govt will do.

 

 

S’pore: the canary in the coalmine/ Is the ground sweet for the PAP?

In Europe once upon a time, every team of coal miners going underground carried a caged canary. If the canary died, they got out ASAP because it meant that there there were poisonous gases that could kill them.

S’pore is the world’s canary when it comes to trade. We suffer earlier than other countries or cities when there’s a global trade slowdown.

As the FT reports,

A trade canary sings — Singapore’s non-oil exports recorded their third consecutive double-digit fall in May, with electronics shipments falling 31.4 per cent (the largest decrease since late 2008) after a 16.3 per cent drop in April.

Marc Ostwald at ADM says the slide in electronics exports sends a “dire signal” as it represents “a generally very reliable proxy for the semiconductor and telecoms sectors worldwide”.

Oxford Economics note that their “coincident and leading global trade indicators are continuing to trend downwards, and the latter has fallen to its lowest level since 2009”.

“While this does not mean that a global recession is around the corner, it suggests that global growth will remain sluggish in the near term and that export-orientated economies will continue to struggle.”

Heng has to do better than talking about cock about natural aristocrats (PAP ministers) partnering us plebs to make S’pore a better place. His 4G team needs 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

What are the headwinds other than a lousy economy going into a GE

— Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

— Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP.

And there’s the promised 2 percentage points GST rise .coming possibly, when the economy’s in a recession. This when the PAP govt has huge budget surpluses.

But the PAP has a good vote bank because Why S’poreans continue voting for the PAP to have 2/3 of parly seats;  PAP genius at work and Why grumbling about PAP govt, doesn’t mean S’poreans are disaffected and rooting for change.

Where the PAP votes are coming from

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP (But balanced off by above 34,000+ retail investors in Hyflux who could lose 90% of their investments)

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

Why Milliennals will vote for the PAP

Merdeka Package shows how smart scholars are

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

CPFLife: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

TOC’s “Correspondent” shows that PAP govt really cares for S’poreans

Vaping: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

Groceries: PAP cares for u, really they do

CPF interest rates: PAP govt cares for u, they really do

Oh I nearly forgot, civil servants especially the plebs are getting ang pows.

 

 

CPF interest rates: PAP govt cares for u, they really do

The US 10-year real yield — a barometer of future growth expectations for the economy — has dropped below 0.4 per cent, eyeing its September 2017 nadir of 0.25 per cent.

FT a few days ago

CPFers get a better deal from the PAP govt.

Our inflation rate is about 1.37%.

But

Savings in the Special Account earn a guaranteed 4% while savings in the Ordinary Account only earn a guaranteed 2.5%. The lower interest rate offered by OA is due to its wider usage. For instance, funds in OA are allowed to be utilised to fund child’s tertiary education as well as CPF member’s property purchase. Such uses of the CPF funds are not applicable to the Special Account and a higher interest rate is therefore provided to compensate for its restricted use.

How to Optimise Singapore CPF: Ordinary Account into Special Account

2.5 – 1.37 = 1.13. 1.13 is the real return assuming that the CPF interest rate is only 2.5%. and we know it’s higher, don’t we?

And taz not all. Read, the bits I bolded

The interest rate on Ordinary Account (OA) monies is reviewed quarterly. OA monies earn either the legislated minimum interest of 2.5% per annum, or the 3-month average of major local banks’ interest rates, whichever is higher.

The OA interest rate will be maintained at 2.5% per annum from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019, as the computed rate of 0.60% is lower than the legislated minimum interest rate.

And​

The interest rate on Special and MediSave Account (SMA) monies is reviewed quarterly. SMA monies earn either the current floor interest rate of 4% per annum or the 12-month average yield of 10-year Singapore Government Securities (10YSGS) plus 1%, whichever is higher. In view of the continuing low interest rate environment, the Government has decided to further extend the 4% floor rate for interest earned on all SMA monies for another year until 31 December 2019.

Consequently, the SMA interest rate will be maintained at 4% per annum from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019, as the computed rate of 3.37% is lower than the current floor interest rate of 4% per annum.

And

The interest rate on Retirement Account (RA) monies is reviewed annually. RA monies credited each year will be invested in newly-issued Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) which will earn a fixed coupon rate equal to either the 12-month average yield of the 10YSGS plus 1% computed for the year, or the current floor rate of 4% per annum, whichever is higher. The interest rate earned by RA monies is the weighted average interest rate of the entire portfolio of these SSGS, which is adjusted in January each year to take into account the coupon rates payable by the new SSGS issuance. In view of the continuing low interest rate environment, the Government has decided to further extend the 4% floor rate for interest earned on the RA for another year until 31 December 2019.

The average yield of the 10YSGS plus 1% from November 2017 to October 2018 is 3.38% per annum. As this is below the current floor rate of 4% per annum, new SSGS issued in the year of 2019 will pay a fixed coupon of 4%.

Consequently, the RA interest rate from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 will be maintained at 4% per annum.

Above from CPF website

Vote wisely.

Related posts (Even an anti-PAP TOC writer appreciates that the PAP govt cares):

CPFLife: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

TOC’s “Correspondent” shows that PAP govt really cares for S’poreans

Vaping: PAP govt cares for u, really they do

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

Groceries: PAP cares for u, really they do

Winter’s here, and it’s an Antarctic winter

Further to Winter is here, how big will the anti-PAP vote be?, we now know the winter is really bad.

Retrenchments rose in the first quarter of the year, driven by losses in the manufacturing sector, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said on Thursday (Jun 13).

According to MOM, retrenchments increased from 2,510 in the previous quarter to 3,230 in the first three months of 2019.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/labour-market-held-up-in-q1-2019-retrenchments-up-mom-11622978

Stay tuned for my analysis on what the PAP govt will do to make sure that the 4G team will get 65% of the popular vote: the pass mark for bragging rights that they have the people’s mandate.

Winter is here, how big will the anti-PAP vote be?

Economists again lowered their guesstimates  for S’pore’s expected growth in 2019 after the year’s first quarter saw its slowest growth in nearly a decade, the latest economic survey from the central bank said on Wednesday. The economists guess this year’s GDP to be 2.1%, down from the previous forecast of 2.5 per cent.

This follows the S’pore’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – which measures manufacturing activity and sentiment – declined 0.4 point from the previous month to 49.9 in May, said the S’pore Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management (SIPMM) on Monday (Jun 3). This is the first contraction in 32 months or since 2016.(Fyi, a PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion, while one below the benchmark line points to contraction.)

Worse according to a report released by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and financial forecasting firm Oxford Economics released around the same time as the PMI data

Export-dependent Singapore is expected to be hurt the most among major South-east Asian economies, as fears of more trade tariffs between the United States and China set in.

Singapore’s economy is projected to slide from the 3.1 per cent growth last year to 1.9 per cent this year, before recovering slightly to 2.2 per cent in 2020.

It is the sharpest predicted slump out of six South-east Asian nations tracked by the institute, which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Singapore’s projected performance this year falls below the 4.8 per cent growth forecast for the year across the region.

So will S’porean voters desert the PAP? After all, Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP and Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP. And there’s the promised 2 percentage points GST rise .coming possibily, when the economy’s in a recession. This when the PAP govt has huge budget surpluses.

But the cybernuts should not be raising their hopes of their hero Mad Dog forming a coalition govt of spastics. At the very, very worse, the PAP will get only 60% of the popular vote (a 10 point fall) and retain a two-thirds majority and not win back Aljunied. No GRC will fall even to Team TCB.

What is most likely is that the 4G will not the mandate they want: Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote.

But might voters come out in support of the PAP and give another overwhelming mandate, like in 2001 (after Islamists attacked NYC)? The global situation is bad, and they only trust the PAP to do the right thing? Why S’poreans continue voting for the PAP to have 2/3 of parly seats , PAP genius at work and Why grumbling about PAP govt, doesn’t mean S’poreans are disaffected and rooting for change.

Where the PAP votes will come from:

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP (But balanced off by above 34,000+ retail investors in Hyflux who could lose 90% of their investments)

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

Why Milliennals will vote for the PAP

 Merdeka Package shows how smart scholars are 

Merdeka Generation: PAP cares for u, really they do

 

 

 

More jobs for FTs?

Masayoshi Son-led Vision Fund is reportedly in talks to open a China office and expand its Singapore team, according to Deal Street Asia.

A call centre on the outskirts of Florence opened earlier has 150 people answering calls from customers in 26 countries who want to buy, return or chat about Gucci. By 2020, Gucci plans to open similar call centres in New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

No elections this year?

How to hold a general election this yr when the ground is not sweet for PAP to get 65% of the vote ( Why PAP aiming for 65% of the popular vote)? The economy is going to the dogs.

Non-oil exports continue slide in April with export performance missed expectations, posting a steep drop in April as regional trade tensions continued to weigh on the island nation’s economy.  Non-oil domestic exports fell 10% year on year, below a Reuters poll forecasting a 6%.

The fall was the second consecutive drop after March’s disappointing data, which showed an 11.8 per cent year-on-year drop, marking the worst export performance since October 2016.

No wonder Kee Chiu said

Singaporeans must gird themselves for the long haul.

Related posts:

Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP

Another reason why ground is not sweet for the PAP

But doesn’t mean PAP will lose election as predicted by TOC and TRE cybernuts

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP (But balanced off by above 34,000+ retail investors in Hyflux who could lose 90% of their investments)

Why S’poreans continue voting for the PAP to have 2/3 of parly seats

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

 

When China and US row

This is what happens to the world.

 

 

(Artist Walker Wright created the skeleton from driftwood while the vomit was made from washed-up plastic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-48193779?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment_and_arts&link_location=live-reporting-story)

Meanwhile

 

 

 

 

We can use 100% green energy by 2035 but won’t

In the US more than 100 cities have recently pledged to run on 100% renewable energy, signing onto the Sierra Club’s “Ready For 100” campaign.

One of the cities is Atlanta, a place that uses lots of air conditioning

So, how exactly will the folks in Atlanta increase the city’s green energy supply from 8% to 100% by 2035? They’re going to start by trying to use less energy.

“There’s an awful lot of low-hanging fruit left,” said Matt Cox, CEO of the Greenlink Group, who helped craft Atlanta’s new plan.

Mr Cox says you start with the basics: insulating old homes and installing energy-efficient lights and better cooling and heating systems.

“We identified an opportunity to reduce the consumption in the city 25% to 30%, just through the energy-efficiency side alone.”

And Mr Cox says studies found there’s another benefit to investing in efficiency: “They were showing an internal rate of return of over 60%. That’s six-zero percent. That kind of a return on an investment is a tremendous opportunity that you don’t see hardly anywhere.

“You look at the stock market, you’re going to be happy to get 7% or 10% out of that.”

But efficiency is just a start. Atlanta’s plan also relies on putting up a lot more solar panels – on homes, commercial buildings and at utility scale solar farms. It banks on things like improved battery storage for solar energy as well as renewable-energy credits from outside the state to offset coal and gas power still coming from the local grid.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48112075

If Atlanta is aspiring to be so green, so should we: https://sbr.com.sg/utilities/more-news/singapore-takes-lead-in-embracing-green-energy-across-asean-report

But I forget that we want to be a major LNG centre and so our power generators are paid to use LNG: http://singaporepowerdesk.com/vesting-contracts-made-singapore-consumers-pay-2-7-billion-sgd-last-4-years/

And screwing Hyflux and its investors:

When Hyflux was first awarded the Tuaspring project in 2011, based on the financial model which modeled the cashflow projections from the project, the power plant was expected to generate profits from day one. This financial model was audited by an external financial model auditor and furnished to the offtaker. In 2013 when Tuaspring was able to secure a non-recourse project financing loan, the lender commissioned an independent market study of the project which arrived at similar conclusions supporting the book value of approximately SGD1.4 billion.

Hyflux fiasco shows why “book value” is BS

But to be fair to the PAP govt:

 Hyflux decided to build its power plant after the LNG vesting contracts were awarded to the other gencos. When Hyflux made this decision, information on the plans by other gencos to increase their generation capacity was publicly available. Hyflux’s present financial situation is a result of its own commercial decisions, with full knowledge of the gas supply situation and electricity generation market. It is incorrect for Mr Leong to claim that Hyflux’s financial problems were caused by “an unexpected domestic policy change”.

https://www.ema.gov.sg/reply_to_forum_letter.aspx?news_sid=20190403hDf4R8s5Rwna

Related post written before EMA set the record straight: Will Oliver Lum and other Hyflux investors still vote for the PAP?

These might interest:

Hyflux: Don’t cry for the investors

Hyflux directors, mgt & auditors kooning from 2016 onwards?

Hyflux on investor losses: “Not our fault, banksters at work”

 

 

 

PAP genius at work

The middle classes in developed nations are under pressure from stagnant income growth, rising lifestyle costs and unstable jobs, and this risks fuelling political instability, a new report by the OECD has warned.

FT

As we are a “developed” city state, while S’pore’s middle class has stagnant income growth relative to “affordable” public housing, rising lifestyle costs (think CoEs or public transport fares), and unstable jobs (all those retrenchments and “new age” “sharing economy” jobs), no sign of political instability here despite the attempts of TOC and other cybernut publications, Mad Dog, and Lim Tean.

These articles show why there’s political stability here even though Double confirm, ground not sweet for PAP:

Merdeka Package shows how smart scholars are

Great IB riposte to Mad Dog and P Ravi etc

6,400 senior citizens each get $312.50 hongpao from a TLC

Did u know S’pore graduated to “Flawed democracy”?

Why Milliennals will vote for the PAP

Keeping power in a one-party state

Why ang mohs will vote for the PAP

Why 37,000+ sure to vote for PAP

So what if S’pore is very low on democratic accountability?

 

Redefine “old age” and there’s no longer an aging problem

TOC’s Correspondent latest rant on Heng reminded me that Heng implies we need FTs by the cattle truck load, the presumptive PM because because the population is ageing and not reproducing, while we need a 10m  population.

Well recently the FT had a piece headlined

Demographic time-bomb: Finland sends a warning to Europe

Facing a rapidly ageing population, the country’s difficulty in passing reforms highlights the hurdles ahead

But interesting it reports in the article that “experts in Finland say the debate on ageing needs to be rethought”.

An expert

Prof Vaarama says that it is wrong to classify all people aged over 65 as “old”. She argues true old age starts at 80-85. Before that, people could still be working and be consumers in the new so-called “silver economy”. “Society doesn’t yet understand what longevity is. We should look at how we can benefit from this population,” she adds.

Time for the policy thinkers in the SDP and people like Tay Kheng Soon to think more about issue. The PAP won’t change their mind about a Hard Truth.

Why S’poreans migrating to Antipodes or Canada

Totful, caring or juz KS pushy parents want their children to more easily move up the economic ladder.

This is something that our constructive, nation-building media wouldn’t dare tell u about. Funnily neither does alt media (TRE excepted, if it republishes this piece).

The Great Gatsby curve illustrates the connection between concentration of wealth in one generation and the ability of those in the next generation to move up the economic ladder compared to their parent. Shows that in S’pore very difficult to move up the economic ladder. We are in same boat as UK, USA, France, Italy and Switzerland.

No wonder S’poreans migrate to Australia, NZ and Canada. They hope their children can be more mobile economically.

Equal Opportunity in S’pore? What equal opportunity?

Downside of China-US trade deal for Asia and Europe

Citi says that should Chinese import capacity not increase and China imports up to an additional US$200bn worth of US goods — “the economies more exposed to China would be the most vulnerable to any adjustment in trade flows”.

Asian economies would be the most exposed if trade flows are adjusted from a proportional market share perspective, while European economies face similar losses across all scenarios.

M’sia getting “peanuts”; S’pore getting billions

In M’sian casino operator kanna do NS by Tun?, I speculated that Genting M’sia was forced to buy a yacht by the M’sian govt for US$126m when others were bidding much lower prices.

Here’s the real reason why: Genting will spend S$4.5bn to improve the facilities on Sentosa and pay more tax here, all this when Tun is trying to bully and intimidate us. So maybe Genting was paying US$126m to keep him from getting upset that a M’sian company was going to spend billions here and not in M’sia?

How theS$4.5bn will be spent:

The new attractions of Super Nintendo World and Minion Park, spanning over 164,000 sqm, will be gradually rolled out at the Universal Studios Singapore every year from 2020 and completed around 2025.

Minion Park, inspired by the Despicable Me movie franchise, will take over the Madagascar zone, now designated for rides and shows tied to the animated movie of the same name. Both Minion Park and Super Nintendo World, based on Nintendo’s popular games and characters, will feature new rides and attractions.

The SEA Aquarium will also be expanded to take over the Maritime Experiential Museum, to create a new Singapore Oceanarium.

Apart from these, RWS’ waterfront promenade will be redeveloped to include a free public attraction featuring a nightly show and multi-purpose event zone that can be adapted for different festivals and events, as well as new dining options.

RWS will also introduce a driverless transport system across the Sentosa Boardwalk, which links to VivoCity mall in Harbourfront.

As for the increased taxes

a tiered structure for casino taxes will be introduced after the current moratorium ends in February 2022. Currently, there is a flat tax rate of 5 per cent for Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) made through premium gaming and 15 per cent for GGR made through mass gaming.

Premium gaming refers to the GGR made through players who open a deposit account with a credit balance of no less than S$100,000. Mass gaming covers players who fall outside of this category.

With the change, the first S$2.4 billion of GGR from premium gaming will be taxed at 8 per cent, while GGR which exceeds S$2.4 billion will be taxed at 12 per cent.

For mass gaming, the first $3.1 billion of GGR will be taxed at 18 per cent while GGR which exceeds $3.1 billion will be taxed at 22 per cent.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/irs-allowed-expand-casinos-exclusivity-rights-extended-end-2030

In the context of all these goodies for S’pore, paying US$126 to M’sia is “peanuts”.

Btw the price of Genting S’pore (owned by controlling shareholder of Genting M’sia) fell: investors and analysts are not happy about the taxes, and capital expenditure that have spent.