Change in Singapore’s Political System???

3 principles for change:

One: they must be fair to all political parties

Two: they should result in a strong, effective Government after an election

Three: they must ensure diverse views are represented in Parliament

~ Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_381309.html

 

…seriously???

Obama sets new credit-card law

 

The Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights Act restricts credit card interest rates and fees.

It is expected to constrict the flow of credit to consumers

 

More information here:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/30873054

Technorati Tags: obama,credit card law

Zeitgeist

I watched both parts of this film yesterday,

Zeitgeist – touches on religion (especially Christianity), 9/11 & the US relationship with the Federal Reserve Bank

 Addendum – touches on the process of fractional-reserve banking, the Economic Hit-man & a "resource-based economy" envisioned by industrial designer/social engineer Jacque Fresco

 

thought provoking and extremely disturbing if what it purports is true…

 

information about both parts can be found on wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist,_the_Movie

Official Web:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Download Torrents can be found here:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/dloads.htm

 

Technorati Tags: zeitgeist,addendum,peter joseph,film

World's Smallest Political Quiz

What’s your political views?

Take this short quiz to find out:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

Predicting the Stock Market..watch the Box Office??

 

This is probably the strangest way of predicting the stock market i’ve heard of……

 

“Craig Forgrave (MarketBOB.com) takes a weekend box office champ and scores it by genre, quality, and storyline. Based on that, he predicts how the Dow will do the following week. Genres which predict a bull market include comedies, family films, and romance. However, quality has a "greater influence on market direction than genre" because it reflects value. "If you leave the theater feeling ripped off, your investment of time and money was wasted, and your confidence is down." Finally, the storyline is important because, "If the main character is depressed, so are you. If the main character is bold, you will be, too."”

Full Article:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29535534

 

Technorati Tags: stock market,investments,box office

Jane Birkin pens "Aung San Suu Kyi"

Singer, Actress, Film director Jane Birkin has written a song for Aung San Suu Kyi in her new album "Enfants d’hiver". She’s involved in a campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and a plea for governments to pull out their investments in Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma. She is currently under detention, with the Burmese junta repeatedly extending her detention.

Lyrics of the song:

Aung San Suu Kyi
will be gone
and she’ll be on a t-shirt
the marketing’s good
monks are dying

so the children are crying
we’ll be playing buckles
before you’re old girls

torture, drug dealers
finance our dreams
why should we care
the stock market’s good

petrol’s booming, generals wooing
trucks are looming
in Rangoon

we know your faces
come out and die
welcome the tourists
under the Burmese sky

…but tomorrow
the world will see
we did nothing
for Aung San Suu Kyi

The song can be downloaded here:

Jane Birkin - Aung San Suu Kyi(Live)

F.A.Q.’s of Lehman & A.I.G.

came across this articles in the NYTimes, it explained & analysed quite clearly what exactly has happened the pass days..


What lead to the whole mess?

- "Fannie & Freddie helped guarantee mortgages (provided they met certain standards), and were able to fund these guarantees by issuing their own debt, which was in turn tacitly backed by the government. The government guarantees allowed Fannie and Freddie to take on far more debt than a normal company"

- "they appear to have used the funding advantage to rack up huge profits and squeeze the private sector out of the “conforming” mortgage market. Regardless, many firms and foreign governments considered the debt of Fannie and Freddie as a substitute for U.S. Treasury securities and snapped it up eagerly"

- "Fannie and Freddie were weakly supervised and strayed from the core mission"


Why they think Bear Sterns, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac & A.I.G. were bailed out and Lehman wasn't..

- "When Bear was rescued, the Fed created a new lending facility to help provide bridge financing to other investment banks. The new lending arrangement was proposed precisely because there were concerns that Lehman and other banks were at risk for a Bear-like run. Since March, the Fed had also studied what to do if this were to happen again; it concluded that if it modified its lending facility slightly, it could withstand a bankruptcy"

- "if the government had rescued Lehman, it would have repudiated the claim that the Bear rescue was extraordinary; it would have also conceded that in the six months since Bear failed, neither the new facility that it set up nor the other steps to make markets more robust were reliable. Essentially, the Fed and the Treasury would have been admitting that they had lied or were incompetent in stabilizing the financial system — or both"


What happens to the man in the street..?

- "The concern for the man on Main Street is not the bankruptcy of Lehman, per se. Rather, it is the collective inability of major financial institutions to find funding.

As their own funding dries up, the remaining financial firms will be much more cautious in extending credit to normal firms and individuals. So even for people whose own circumstances have not much changed, the cost of the credit is going to rise. For an individual or business that falls behind on payments or needs an increase in short-term credit because of the slowing economy, credit will be much harder to obtain than in recent years."



Above quoted from article here:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-the-recent-financial-upheavals/

Go! Lily Go!!

'I needed to shout for these people'

~ Dr Lily Neo (Jalan Besar GRC)

Dr Lily Neo was speaking up for low-income families who are not eligible for Public Assistance because one or both of the parents are working.

"The cleaners, the hawker assistants who, despite the Government's mantra of helping citizens help themselves, are so down and out they have no way of helping themselves"

'They see the rich, and they see Singapore progressing,' said Dr Neo. 'But then they say, look at me, what chance do I have?'"

"Halfway through the marathon parliamentary session, Dr Lily Neo (Jalan Besar GRC) suddenly waved a piece of paper frantically at the Speaker, Mr Abdullah Tarmugi, like a latecomer flagging a departing bus.
When she got no response, she stood up, walked to the rostrum and stopped the Speaker from moving on to the next question."

"She had asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, a three-point question.

One, whether his Ministry is monitoring how lower-income Singaporeans are being affected by inflation and the stagnation of wages.

Two, whether the available assistance is lessening their difficulties.

And three, whether there will be other measures to ensure that no one falls through the cracks.

In her reply, Minister of State Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, who was standing in for Dr Balakrishnan, listed the different assistance schemes available, and cited examples of families which benefit from the schemes.

Then, before she knew it... 'Question 8!'

The Speaker had signalled the House to move on to the next question, tabled by Dr Lam Pin Min (Ang Mo Kio GRC).

In the row above her, Dr Lam was already rising to acknowledge the Speaker.

That was when Dr Neo lost her cool."

Read More:

http://www.asiaone.com/Just+Woman/News/Women+In+The+News/Story/A1Story20080828-84642.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The lack of assistance for the people who fall through the cracks has been around for a long time and it is made worse by the current high inflationary environment which is not likely to ease in the near future.

I see more & more grannies collecting empty cans out of rubbish bins just to earn the mere few cents & i wonder why they need to do that when the Singapore government is rich.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zimbabwe, the country of "millionaires"

Zimbabwe's inflation rate hits 2.2 million percent

"A 4-pound bag of sugar cost about 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars — $1 — at the government's fixed price, and 90 billion on the black market $4.50 at the bank exchange rate, or $1 at the black market exchange — in a country where unskilled workers earn up to 200 billion Zimbabwean dollars, about $10, a month.

However, few have jobs: unemployment has reached 80 percent."

read more:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g2RPSaqbbqphRrvYYIaUsAV27LZwD91VM5O00

ABC Guide to Beating Inflation in Singapore

with prices raising like nobody's business & oil prices set to break the $130 mark, inflation cannot be ignored & will not be ignored anymore in singapore....

here's a good guide to fighting inflation:

http://www.post1.net/lowem/entry/abc_guide_to_beating_inflation

Peak Oil

came across this blog 'bout peak oil....

this blogger's views are rather extreme....but does make some sense....

"There is one word that describes our government policies: insane. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Why do I say their policies are insane? Because the cause of our current problems is overgrowth: overpopulation, over-consumption of resources, over-exploitation of planet earth. Will more economic growth solve our problems? If overgrowth is indeed the root cause, then why does the Singapore government continue to insist that "more growth" is the answer to our problems?"

read more:

http://sgentropy.blogspot.com/

Economics on Youtube

Found some economics videos on youtube...

great for beginner economic students! (like myself...)

Heres one on the Kinked-Demand Curve:

Videos by Mr. Phil Holden (Teacher of Economics in Greece)

his videos link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pajholden