Yesterday it was Three Arrows, today it’s Vauld

Another bad day in the office for the MAS, and our millionaire ministers.

Another crypto business based in supposedly well regulated and crypto-friendly S’pore tanks.*

Vauld, a S’pore-based crypto lender halted withdrawals and trading on its platform, int’l media reports. It said was looking at all options, including restructuring. It was offering clients annualised returns of up to 40% to lend out their crypto tokens, said clients had yanked almost US$200mn from its platform in the past three weeks as high-profile failures panicked investors. Doubtless our central bank allowed it to operate here because Coinbase exchange and billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

Let’s see if our constructive, nation-building media reports this breaking story. Remember this: Did our constructive, nation-building media report this?

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*This sentence was added hours after first publication.

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Cryptocurrencies in S’pore

Two interesting charts showing our level of awareness of cryptocurrencies. Good omen for the government’s attempts via MAS to make S’pore a global centre for all things crypto currencies. In Asia, China has made all activities connected to crypto currencies illegal as it prepares to launch its very own digital currency. And Japan is cautious on the issue having approved several exchanges. They ran into problems.

our central bank with several big banks is experimenting with the code underlying Ethereum. it can be used to create smart contracts.

Btw, Ethereum’s doing well

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

 

 

 

 

Expect MAS to “manipulate” S$ lower

TD Securities recently said S’pore could shift to an easier stance (code for allowing S$ to weaken against US$ and other currencies) in October.

TD Securities expects plenty of central bank action from Asia this summer as US and Chinese tariffs against each other bite and other Asian economies become collateral damage. It says many Asian countries have room to act, given the relative stability in their currencies.

M’sia is likely to ease policy in July. India, Indonesia and Philippines are likely to ease by August. South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand are likely to ease later in the year.

And they will all say “We don’t target the exchange rate.”

Yesterday, Trump complained that the euro zone’s monetary policy is unfair, complaining of a weak euro

Asked whether he was starting a currency war, Mr Draghi [the president of the European Central Bank] responded that his only objective was to achieve the bank’s inflation target. “We don’t target the exchange rate,” he said. His audience burst into applause.

Economist

Asian central banks will copy and paste “We don’t target the exchange rate.”

And Trump will KPKB.

Related posts:

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

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

 

Why TOC’s Danisha Hakeem is a menace to the credibility of alt media

He’s regularly propagating fake news, or fabricated news.

This was very apparent in a story about our financial sector, an important driver of the economy, thus supporting the govt’s argument on the need to regulate fake news:

Senior Minister of State for Law Edwin Tong has hinted at the tabling of a Bill aimed at curbing the spread of deliberate online falsehoods in the coming months after numerous consultations and debates among legislators and members of the public surrounding the potential anti-“fake news” laws.

TOC

The fake news is that the S’pore govt was and is not doing anything about S’pore-based banks role in laundering 1MDB funds. This could affect our financial sector, and hence our economy.

Danisha Hakeem ended a TOC piece headlined “Singapore figured very highly as a place from which money laundering occurred”: Veteran business journalist on 1MDB fiasco

Given the stringent approach often adopted by Singapore authorities –– particularly relevant to this case is the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) –– in dealing with legal misconduct, it certainly raises some questions as to why potentially illegal financial movements on such a scale did not seem to have raised any red flags for the authorities at the time the activities were carried out.

In reaching this conclusion, Danisha Hakeem conveniently omitted in the piece the following facts which even my Vocational Institute educated dog knows:

— the banks found to be at fault didn’t report these transactions as suspicious as they were or are supposed to;

— there was an official investigation;

— offending banks (including UOB and StanChart) were fined;

— one bank was closed down;

— and bank executives prosecuted and jailed.

Some links to give the lie to the fake news that the S’pore govt did not do anything about the 1MDB scandal.

— https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/29/singapores-central-bank-fines-credit-suisse-and-uob-for-1mdb-related-transactions.html

— http://fortune.com/2016/10/11/1mdb-singapore-dbs-ubs-falcon-bank/

— https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-scandal-bsi/singapore-sentences-ex-bsi-banker-to-more-jail-time-in-1mdb-linked-case-idUSKBN19X0MC

— https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/1mdb-probe-former-bsi-bank-director-yvonne-seah-sentenced-to-2-w-7670980

He’s like the infamous Alex Tan in fabricating false news.

Also  by fabricating the news, Danisha Hakeem undermines TOC’s claim on why we need independent media: The need for alt media

For the record, I don’t think Terry deserves to be charged for criminal defamation because he took down the offending article when the authorities told him they were unhappy. But given the fake news propagated by Danisha Hakeem in his articles (too many to recount and rebut), one can understand the desire to rough up Terry.

Jokes’ aside, legally there is good reason to suspect that Danisha Hakeem’s trying very hard in this artcle

to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the Government

Sedition Act: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/SA1948

And given TOC’s track record, ill intent on his part is easy to prove. Not that the prosecution has to prove intent in any of the following offences.

4.—(1)  Any person who —

(a)	does or attempts to do, or makes any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act which has or which would, if done, have a seditious tendency;

(b) utters any seditious words;

(c) prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes or reproduces any seditious publication; or

[…]

shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction for a first offence to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or to both, and, for a subsequent offence, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years; and any seditious publication found in the possession of that person or used in evidence at his trial shall be forfeited and may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of as the court directs.

Or maybe he’s trying to defame the central bank, hoping that the chairman or MD sues him for defamation that that the AG prosecutes him for criminal defamation.

But maybe he really wasn’t trying to propagate fake news or subvert the govt or defame the central bank, but was smoking ganja or ingesting other illegal substance when he wrote the piece?  Or is he a visitor from an alternative S’pore where the Men in White are the Men in Black?

(Related posts

PM visiting from Bizarro S’pore?

Tharman also from Bizarro S’pore?)

Whatever with Danisha Hakeem churning out articles for TOC (I’ll denounce another one of his pieces soon), the PAP govt doesn’t need to worry. Using TOC as a platform, he discredits all those rational, fair-minded S’poreans (self included) who oppose PAP hegemony. But then maybe that’s his real agenda? He gets thirty pieces of silver?

MAS gives finger to CSA’s CEO

Remember CSA’s CEO downplaying the loss of NRIC numbers etc (Is Computer Security Agency CEO talking thru his ass about stolen info?)?

Should you be worried?

In short, not really, said the authorities. CSA chief executive David Koh said the stolen information are “basic demographic data”.

Constructive, nation-building CNA

Well it’s now clear that the central bank for one thinks he’s talking cock

“With immediate effect, all financial institutions should not rely solely on the types of information stolen (name, NRIC number, address, gender, race, and date of birth) for customer verification,” MAS said in a statement.

“Additional information must be used for verification before undertaking transactions for the customer. This may include, for instance, One-Time Password, PIN, biometrics, last transaction date or amount, etc.”

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singhealth-cyberattack-mas-financial-institutions-verification-10558690

Meritocracy? What meritocracy?

 

 

Our Southern Indians are world class

This M’sia: Must be kilang reminded me that one source of tension locally is that FT Indians who call themselves “Aryans” (Shades of Hitler’s master race) look down on the local Indians from the South who are darker skinned. The Aryans subscribe to a now discredited version of history that the Aryans (who claim ang mohs descended from them) invaded India kicking South the darker skin abos.

In an FT report, sometime back, FT said that the Trump administration is considering Randy Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, as the next head of the Financial Stability Board, but it mentioned that Ravi Menon was a possible candidate from East Asia.

The new head’s job is to refrain from making new regulations and instead evaluate whether its post-crisis reforms are having any unintended consequences

A local Tamil has held a high-profile post in int’l finance before.

In April 2017, Tharman was appointed to chair a G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, which was set up to review the system of multilateral financial institutions. He also succeeded Jean-Claude Trichet as Chairman of the Group of Thirty, an independent global council of leading economic and financial policy-makers from January 1, 2017.

Tharman had previously been appointed by his international peers as Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the key policy forum of the IMF, for an extended period of four years from 2011; he was its first Asian chair. In announcing Tharman’s selection, the IMF said that his “broad experience, deep knowledge of economic and financial issues, and active engagement with global policy makers will be highly valuable to the IMFC”

But our Chinese tua kee types should not be too upset because Jacqueline Loh, deputy managing director of our  central bank chairs the BIS’s markets committee. On digital currencies, Ms Loh, who has presided over experiments that offered digital currencies to wholesale market participants in her role as DMD of the central bank, acknowledged that any decision would ultimately have to be made at state level.

 

MAS not walking the talk on Initial Coin Offerings

The head of the central bank has been KPKBing about the dangers of crytocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings (or ICOs): Why S’pore’s fintech ambitions won’t go far

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ICOs enable companies to raise money for blockchain projects, without selling equity, by issuing virtual tokens or coins which can be bought by investors.

______________________________________________________________

But did you know that S’pore is third after US and Switzerland in ICO funds raised between Jan to Oct 2017? FT has a diagram showing that ICOs in S’pore raised US$184m. ICOs raised US$580m in the US and US$550m in Switzerland. Russia was juz behind us with US$111m.

Sounds like the central bank is trying to have its cake and eat it.

Let’s hope retail investors don’t get burnt. But somehow I think pigs will fly first.

Sad,

 

Why S’pore’s fintech ambitions won’t go far

Too much wishful thinking combined with motherhood BS from the authorities.

The head of Singapore’s central bank said on Monday he hoped the technologies underpinning cryptocurrencies such as blockchain would not be undermined by an eventual crash in the digital money.
Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-central-bank-head-hopes-cryptocurrency-tech-will-survive–crash–9861880

And

Menon added that he would not rule out the possibility of the MAS issuing a cryptocurrency directly to the public but that he was not sure it was a good idea.

This reminded me that in mid November last yr, he told the Financial Times that S’pore only wants good initial coin offerings: MAS was “very keen’’ to facilitate fundraising through “good” initial coin offerings.

HE said it  wanted to use its “regulatory sandbox” approach — created to experiment with financial innovations in a controlled environment with regulatory reliefs for a limited period of time — as a testing ground for good ICOs.

Problem is that the way he defines a good ICO means that there’s no incentive for anyone to want to raise money because the there’s no money to be made by investors or the fund raiser.

Seriously, this is what he said on what is a “goods” ICO.

He identified two kinds of good ICOs that could prosper under an MAS regulatory environment created last year that was designed to support financial innovation. Mr Menon said one type was a transaction that did not promise a return linked to the financial performance of the issuing company, and was not designed as a speculative bet on the cryptocurrency being used.

“What makes a security a security is basically a promise; a promise to share in the economic interest of your enterprise,” he said. “If you can find a model of crowd funding that doesn’t involve that, then you are not regulated at all.”

Wow work for free isit? While ministers ands senior bureaucrats make millions in salaries?Manna ada logic?

AS I said before, in S’pore, fintech is about making the local banks more efficent and entrenched, not diarupting the banks. Bit like the 10% of S’porean voters who vote Oppo to make sure the PAP listens to them.

 

Be afraid, very afraid/ PAP doomed, like USSR commies?

S’pore is facing serious economic problems. And who knows, it could lead to political change?

—————————————————-

Going the way of the USSR?

Recently Chris K posted on Facebook It was when the mobilisation of labour and capital have completely ran its course [in the USSR] that the troubles of the 1980s began. In this Singapore is also following the same path. Th PAP says they know this has to change but the flesh is weak even if the spirit is willing.

(Related post: http://utwt.blogspot.sg/2012/02/myth-of-paps-miracle-paul-krugman.html)

The logical conclusion of this view is that the PAP like the the Soviet Communist Party is doomed.  Question of time.

Os the 2015 GE, the high water mark for the PAP? Could the Lee row be an omen?

Where Chris K and I agree is that if property prices fall 20%, it’s bye-bye PAP.

————————————————————

Did you know that the last time MAS  adopted a flat stance on the currency was in 2009 in  a recession. We not yet in recession so the move is pre-emptive. But this means the govt is afraid, very afraid.

Until now, the central bank had adopted a policy of what it had called a “modest and gradual appreciation” of the currency. Keeping the Singapore dollar flat is a move previously associated with recessions: significantly, the MAS last took this position in the middle of the global financial crisis in October 2008.

On the face of it, Singapore has no immediate reason for concern. Its fiscal surplus and low unemployment make it seem an economic paradise to policymakers elsewhere. Nevertheless, the man on the street has been experiencing deflation for several months now, a predicament not unfamiliar in other parts of the developed world. In February, the government forecast that prices would range from flat to down 1 percent this year. The central bank’s preferred measure of inflation, which excludes rent and transport costs, remains below 2 percent.

Singapore is also showing signs of stress. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter compared with the final three months of last year. Though manufacturing output rose after six consecutive quarters of contraction, this was due to a temporary increase in pharmaceutical production. In the dominant services sector, economic activity shrank by 3.8 percent from the fourth quarter of last year.

With the stock market in the doldrums and property prices falling, local bank DBS predicts growth of just 1.5 per cent this year, and says a downward revision could be on the cards. For all the outward calm, Singapore has plenty to worry about.

http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2016/04/14/singapore-joins-global-battle-against-deflation/

Laughing mortgagees/ Betting against the Fed

(Updated at 19.30am: A few “honest mistakes”)

We’ve heard a lot in the constructive, nation-building media* and from cybernuts about coming big rises in mortgage rates. The cybernuts in TRE are happy because the rising rates show (in their demented, deranged minds) the folly of mortgagees mortsagors voting for the PAP. As though voting for their heroes, Dr Chee, s/o JBJ, Roy, Han Hui Hui, M Ravi and Goh Meng Seng would make a difference.

Well the brainless “PAP is always right” hacks and hackettes  and the “PAP is always wrong” nuts are likely to be wrong and mortgagees mortgagors will have a festive Deepavali , a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a Prosperous Lunar New Year: if market expectations are to be believed.

Market expectations have played down the chance of US tighter monetary policy before next year. Futures markets predict a 32.3% chance of a rise by December, with March currently given an even chance of a Fed move.

What this means is that there come December the market thinks the Fed will stay its hand. And maybe stay its hand in March. Btw,“We see another round of QE ,,,” said Merrill Lynch this week, implying that the Fed will soon loosen policy.

But economists in London and NY still forecast rise in Fed rate before year’s end. Despite a tempering in the US labour market, 65% of the 46 economists from leading banks polled by the FT said the central bank would increase the federal funds rate at its December meeting.

If they are wrong and the markets are right, mortgagees mortgagors can keep on partying thru to end of March if not longer. The only dark cloud is that residential property prices are flat if not edging down

The Fed’s decision not to raise rates in September and October has allowed MAS to ease things a little here

On Oct 14, our central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), announced that it would continue to ease monetary policy** to accommodate for the slower growth that Singapore is experiencing, largely due to weaker global growth expectations. It could do this because the Fed stayed its hand on raising interest rates.

A slower appreciation of the S$ raises the rate of inflation: not good for retirees like me. We want deep deflation.

But a slower appreciation of the S$, is good for exchange rate sensitive industries such as manufacturing, tourism, and professional services that have regional clients.

To make things simple, monetary policy is like steroids for the economy. If our economy is underperforming, MAS can stimulate it by injecting some steroids. That is what happened, by easing our monetary policy.

http://dollarsandsense.sg/how-will-singaporeans-be-affected-from-mas-relaxation-in-monetary-policy/

Coming back to the possibility of a rate rise by the end of the year: a large majority of policymakers, 13 out of the 17, or 76% 0n the Fed’s rate-setting Open Market Committee, expect a rate rise this year.

A bet against a rate rise is a bet that they will change their minds.

The big divergence in opinion between the Fed and the markets over when rates will rise means that if the Fed moves in December there will be serious volatility and mortgagees mortgagors will be having a miserable Christmas, a sorrowful New Year and an abalone-and angpow-free Lunar New Year. They’ll be crying all the way to the bank what with higher interest rates, tanking residential prices and the probability of losing their jobs.

But will the mortgagees have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a Prosperous Lunar New Year? Paying out huge bonuses? I doubt it. They’ll be worried about loan defaults.

—-

This appeared in CNA shumetime back

Mortgage rates have risen since the start of the year, and analysts have said home owners should brace themselves for further increases.

At the beginning of 2015, home buyers in Singapore could get loans that start at 1.6 per cent in the first year. That rate has been creeping up, and the figure is now around 2 per cent, for rates pegged to three-month Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (SIBOR), said CEO of financial advisory firm SingCapital, Alfred Chia.

Mortgage brokers also said rates are likely to go up further, as recent increases in the three-month SIBOR – a key benchmark used by banks when setting  mortgages – have not been fully reflected in the interest rates homeowners are currently paying.

Said Mr Chia: “With an impending rise of the US Federal Reserve rates, SIBOR is definitely set to rise.  Banks have used SIBOR or Swap Offer Rate (SOR) as a reference when they do the mortgage interest rates. Meaning to say, they peg it to a public rate, and if the rates go up or down, it will affect the mortgage interest rates the borrowers will serve.”

DBS said it expects SIBOR to rise from the current 1.13 per cent to 1.22 per cent by the end of this year, and 1.75 per cent in about a year’s time.

Should mortgages increase by the same amount, a family with an outstanding S$500,000 mortgage spread over 20 years will have to pay an additional S$137.71 a month to service the loan.

Assuming variable interest rate rises from the current 2 per cent now to 2.6 per cent next year, the monthly instalment will rise from S$2,529.42 to S$2,667.13, using DBS’s online mortgage calculator.

Analysts have said most home owners can shoulder the burden as banks must ensure borrowers can still service their home loans if interest rates rise to 3.5 per cent, according to Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) requirements.

**Singapore manages its monetary policy by using the exchange rate  (not interest rates like the Fed, BoJ, BoE, ECB etc. Dt Goh Keng Swee said using interest rate to control monetary policy is not effective as the exchange rate in an open, tiny economy like S’pore’s.). The exchange rate is pegged to a “sectre” basket of currencies from countries that are important trading partners. The US$ is a big, big component.

Insider trading: The long reach of MAS

This case surprised me because all that happened was that a bank account here was usedto buy the shares. Otherwise everything was done overseas.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement on Wednesday it fined Rajiv, a former Indonesia investment banking head of UBS, S$434,912 (US$313,857) in the 2012 insider trading case. It sweems the guy juz lost his job at Caryle as head of its Indon division.

The MAS said Rajiv bought 1 million PT Bank Danamon shares in March 2012 through his wife’s bank account in Singapore after he possessed price-sensitive and non-public information on a proposed acquisition of Danamon by Singapore’s DBS Bank.

DBS announced the proposed acquisition in April 2012 and MAS said Rajiv made a profit of S$173,965 from his insider trades when he was with UBS. Due to regulatory issues, DBS subsequently pulled the plug on the Danamon deal.

The MAS said Rajiv admitted breaking the securities law and paid MAS the civil penalty without court action.

Another view of why MAS didn’t further ease S$

The entral bank left its policy of “modest and gradual” appreciation of the local currency unchanged in its policy review on April 14. Analysts had expected further easing. The MAS had raised their hopes in January with its unexpected decision to reduce the pace of the local dollar’s appreciation against a basket of other currencies.

Our constructive, nation-building media has spun this latest decision by implying MAS was confident that the economy was improving and that there was no need for further easing. A weaker Singapore dollar should boost the cost of imported goods and help arrest a slide in domestic inflation. It could also help the city-state’s exporters regain some of their lost competitiveness. The latest data show Singapore’s manufacturing industry shrank by 3.4 percent between January and March compared with a year earlier.

But an FT from Reuters pointed out:

But the flip side of a weaker currency is the prospect of a sudden spike in domestic interest rates. The benchmark 3-month interbank rate has more than doubled in the past eight months to slightly above 1 percent. If the U.S. Federal Reserve raises its target for short-term U.S. rates, investors might demand even greater compensation to hold a falling Singapore currency. Mortgage rates in the city, still ridiculously cheap at below 2 percent, might shoot up.

That could be problematic. The era of global easy money since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis has led to a doubling of outstanding bank loans. The multiyear credit boom has pumped up Singapore’s real estate. After rising 62 percent in four years, home prices have eased 6 percent over the past 18 months – helped by the government’s strenuous attempts to contain the mania. While gently easing prices would allow the property market to rediscover its balance, a collapse could hurt both borrowers and lenders.

Singapore’s war against stalling consumer prices and anaemic global demand would benefit from a cheaper currency. But those gains may not be enough to justify pricking a credit-fuelled property bubble. If air escapes too quickly, the damage could be far greater.

http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/04/14/singapores-war-on-deflation-hobbled-by-bubble/

SIA boleh, MAS tak boleh

Malaysia Airlines’ 19,500 staff operate a fleet of 108 aircraft, while SIA operates 103 aircraft with 5,000 fewer employees. The result is that over the past nine years the Malaysian carrier has lost a net Rm3.56bn ($1.1bn), while Singapore Airlines has made S$8.86bn ($7.1bn) without a single year of losses.

Says a lot about how S’pore Inc and M’sia Inc do things.

 

MAS tragedy: SIA attacked by anti-PAP cyber warriors?

Really I can’t see why SIA was attacked for saying on Facebook and Twitter that its flights were not using Ukraine airspace.

Reuters reported: That triggered a flood of angry responses, with many lambasting SIA for not offering condolences to the victims’ families and for mounting what some perceived as a publicity stunt during a crisis involving its neighboring country’s flagship airline.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/19/us-ukraine-crisis-singapore-air-idUSKBN0FO0UF20140719

Anyway SIA did the pragmatic thing by apologising and rewording its messages. No pointing rowing with loonies, something PM Lee should learn. https://atans1.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/how-pm-roy-can-resolve-matters-satisfactorily-roysw-defence-work-in-progress/

 

SIA plane juz 17km away

The Daily Mail reports that, despite the conflict, the flight path was fairly crowded with a Heathrow-bound Virgin Atlantic jet and a Singapore Airlines plane both over Ukraine at the moment flight MH17 crashed.

The paper says the Singapore jet was just 17 miles away from the doomed flight.

One of the as-yet unknown questions, is why flight MH17 came to be flying over a conflict zone in which a number of aircraft had been shot down recently, the Daily Telegraph says.

MAS polot didn’t want to divert

The paper reports that a number of airlines, including British Airways, easyJet and Qantas had already changed flight routes to avoid the area, although Malaysia Airlines said there had been “no obvious reasons” to avoid the area.

Nonetheless, the paper says, flight path analysis suggested that other Malaysia planes had skirted the conflict zone, by flying south of the area.

The Telegraph says an expert from the Royal United Services Institute has learned the pilot of the downed flight decided not to change course after apparently telling air traffic controllers he “felt uncomfortable” over the diversion.

Extract from BBC

 

Why MAS really suay cont’d

According to Flight radar24, which monitors live flight paths, the airlines that most frequently flew over Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in the last week were: Aeroflot 86 (flights), Singapore Airlines 75, Ukraine International Airlines 62, Lufthansa 56, and Malaysian 48. It was not necessarily a risky approach. The chance of a rocket reaching above 32,000 feet was considered remote, says Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, author of Why Planes Crash.(Part of BBC report: see pix of flight routrs taken http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28364306 )

SIA flew 56% more flights thru Eastern Ukraine than MAS, yet it was a MAS jet that waz shot down .

SIA employs better bomohs?

 

MAS pilot slightly off planned course

“But although the aircraft was reportedly a few hundred miles north of its planned course to avoid a thunderstorm, its altitude should have marked it as a passenger plane,” reported an Economist blog.

Not seen this in any other report.[Update on 20th July at 10.15 am http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/19/mh17-changing-course-storms-pilot?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20main-1%20Main%20trailblock:Editable%20trailblock%20-%20news:Position1:sublinks ]

MAS is suay. Time for Najib to call in the bomohs to “buang suay”.

The two events that hit it and its passengers these yrs were really freak events.

Whatever it is fly SIA. Only TRE born losers will refuse to fly SIA. Die-die fly other airlines, even if die as a result.

 

Will MAS ever say this?

Martin Wheatley, the outgoing head of Hong Kong’s securities market regulator, said today that sponsors’ due diligence of initial public offerings has been “inadequate” at times.

“In many cases, sponsors are spread too thinly in terms of the number of deals they’re bringing to the market at any one time”.

Hong Kong’s regulator may make sponsors of IPOs in the city liable for statements in their clients’ prospectuses to prevent fraud of locally listed Chinese companies.

Bloomberg story

Never ever heard any MAS official say there was anything wrong with sponsors’ due diligence despite some new listcos coming out with profit warnings shortly after being listed.

I’ve been told that MAS does not inspect sponsors to ensure that they are following “best practices”.  It is left to SGX. A few years ago, a then prominent IPO sponsor was “suspended” from bringing new listings to market.

The HK proposal to make sponsors of IPOs in the city liable for statements in their clients’ prospectuses is a gd one, and should be adopted to prevent fraud in listing S-Chips.

What S’pore and Ireland have in common?

No not because S’pore is heading for insolvency etc if Tan Kin Lian is to believed http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2010/11/will-singapore-face-same-outcome-as.html

We and the Irish are dependent on MNCs.

Mr Honohan [the Irish Central Bank governor] … points out that Ireland’s official GDP and unit labour cost statistics have consisently overstated the size of the Irish economy and its productivity respectively – largely because that economy is so dependent on multinationals with headquarters in the Republic, whose high profits acrrue to the overseas owners of those multinationals rather than to Irish residents.

That overstatement of the magnitude of the output of Irish residents, which in some real sense is attributable to those residents, could be as much as quarter, he says. Excerpt from Robert Preston’s blog on BBC Online.

Here, where the economy too is dependent on MNCs, this means that the economy is not as big as the stats imply. And that productivity is even worse than the already lousy numbers show*. The latter isn’t juz Reform Party spin. Remember there is yet another government campaign to raise productivity going on.

Perhaps the fact that the economy is smaller than the stats imply  is why the government seems obsessed by the need to build up the reserves. We will (not might) need the rainy-day money, one day. Question of “when” not “if”.

What abt High Notes SM Goh?

The central bank has given DBS Bank an unprecedented public censure and instructed the 27%-owned Temasek bank to put aside S$230m  to cover its operational risks. Gd for MAS, and SM Goh (chairman of MAS), Tharman and Hng Kiang. The last two ministers also sit on MAS’ board.

There is another thing to be put right, SM, Tharman and Hng Kiang.

DBS’ Hong Kong unit recently agreed to pay out HK$651 million or about S$115 million to some clients who bought products linked to Lehman Brothers. As HK$1.3 billion of notes were sold, the compensation received works out to 49% of amount invested.

In S’pore, it sold a similar product, HN5 Notes. DBS issued, arranged and distributed HN5. A total of S$103.7 million worth of HN5 were sold to 1,083 retail clients between 30 March and 30 April 2007, according to a July 2009 MAS report.

The same report said DBS compensated investors S$7.8 million.

What this works out to is 7.5% of amount investments versus 49% in HK. Is this fair? Product is the same.

Force DBS to treat the S’porean investors fairly,  ministers. You have the moral authority.

If you do, I’m sure the compensated HN5 investors, family and friends will remember the good deed when the GE comes. It’s “win, win” except for DBS. And even then its a peanutty S$51m, 44% of amount paid to the HongKies.

BTW I did not buy any of the credit-linked notes that failed. Not that “greedy”.

Related post

https://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/dbs-another-case-of-discrimination-against-locals/