Latest Posts By pharoah88
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| 14-Jun-2011 18:16 |
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http://www.tivarati.com/news/105748Singapore Education Day 2011Bangkok–22 Feb–vivaldipr Singapore Education will be organising a Singapore Education Day — seminar and exhibition, on 26 February 2011, 1.00pm to 5.00pm, at The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, Ballroom A and B. At the event, you would gain useful information on Studying and Living in Singapore and the ASEAN Scholarships, and meet representatives from leading institutions to find out about the programmes and courses they offer. The institutions participating in the event are: ACS (International), AEC College Singapore, BCA Academy, East Asia Institute of Management, James Cook University, PSB Academy, S P Jain Center of Management, and Singapore Institute of Management. For more information and registration for the event (free-of-charge), please contact Singapore Tourism Board, Tel. 0-2630-4774-6 |
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| 14-Jun-2011 17:57 |
Genting Sing
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GenSp starts to move up again
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http://www.orangepages.com.sg/acra/R/ResortsWorldIncPte.Ltd.php Resorts World Inc Pte. Ltd. Building Name : Springleaf Tower Unit No : #27-01 Street Name : 3 Anson Road Postal Code : Singapore 079909
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| 14-Jun-2011 17:50 |
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Updated: 14/06/2011
Divorce papers filed against teacher who had alleged affair with studentAt the heart of a divorce case which the Family Court heard today was an alleged affair involving Goh Ken-Yi - grandson of former deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee - and his then school teacher. The school teacher and her husband cannot be named as it could lead to the identification the divorcing couple’s children. The wife, 52, was then a teacher in Anglo-Chinese School (Independent). In court papers filed, her husband claimed that the relationship started in 1988 - before the couple’s marriage, when Mr Goh was her student. Mr Goh, 38, is now working as a banker and married with children. The husband also claimed the relationship between his wife and Mr Goh had continued even after his and Mr Goh’s marriage. The court heard today that the husband, 44, has filed for divorce in December 2009 on grounds of " unreasonable behaviour" and had engaged in " improper association" with Mr Goh. During cross-examination, the husband said that the alleged relationship between his wife and Mr Goh was the main reason for filing for divorce as it has also resulted in his wife treating the family poorly. The couple has two sons, age 20 and 17, and the wife is now teaching in an all girls’ school. The case has been adjourned. -By Ng Jing Yng |
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| 14-Jun-2011 11:46 |
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MAY BANK initiates GROWTH ERA tOday
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Maybank ‘likely to offer merger with RHB by month-end’ KUALA LUMPUR Maybank expects to make a proposal to merge with smaller rival RHB Capital by the end of this month, top officials of the bank said yesterday. Maybank and Malaysia’s No 2 bank CIMB are both in talks to take over RHB, Malaysia’s fifth-largest lender with a market value of about RM21.6 billion (S$8.8 billion). “We expect that we would have to make a proposal before the end of the month,” Maybank chairman Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohammad Nor told reporters. Maybank chief executive Wahid Omar added: “Our basic proposition is a merger of the two entities and therefore it will involve share swaps.” — Malaysia’s top lender |
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| 14-Jun-2011 11:27 |
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Don’t wait for others to speak up Letter from Laremy Lee I refer to the letter, “Pole-axed by passengers’ insensitivity on trains” (June 13). As a society, we need to be honest with ourselves about two aspects of human behaviour: People do not know they are behaving inappropriately until they are told otherwise. Unfortunately, we have been dependent on everyone except ourselves to do the work of telling people off. This in itself is inappropriate behaviour and we direly need to undergo a paradigm shift as a society. Instead of standing by and waiting for someone else to chastise wrong-doers, we need to be bolder . We need to firmly and politely inform these people what they are doing wrong, and what they can do to correct their behaviour. Let us remember the fruits of tomorrow are borne from the seeds of today. If we value graciousness and civic awareness in our society, then we must be a part of the process of inculcating these values in our fellow Singaporeans. |
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| 14-Jun-2011 11:23 |
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Your employees, your brand ambassadors Conventional wisdom holds that companies should see to their shareholders’ needs first, their customers’ second and their employees’ last of all. I have always done the opposite and so has the rest of our team. |
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| 14-Jun-2011 11:18 |
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Easier money not the magic solution What US policymakers must beware: Unnaturally low interest rates have consequences other than inflation Raghura m Rajan Like the World War I generals who reacted to every slaughter of their men by sending even more over the top of their trenches in a vain attempt to overwhelm the enemy, ‘free money’ types react with ‘More!’ if their policy does not seem to be working.
Economic growth in the United States seems to be slowing again. This might reflect temporary factors, like the Japanese tsunami, which disrupted supply chains and caused some factories to suspend operations.
PUSHING PEOPLE TO SPEND A second view is that households are scared and saving too much — they need to be pushed into consuming by lowering the returns to savings.
It is hard to imagine, though, that with the US household savings rate at about 5 per cent and with households severely indebted, they are saving too much. While it might be nice to get them to spend a little more now and save more later, it is hard to engineer this easily.
After all, the housing bubble was caused, in part, by pushing credit on households so that they would spend the US out of the recession that followed the dotcom bust.
A third channel through which easy money might work is by pushing up the value of assets like stocks, bonds and houses, making people feel wealthier — and thus more likely to spend.
For this channel to be sustainable, though, the wealth gains must be permanent.
Otherwise, what goes up will come down, leaving households even more frightened of financial markets.
Clearly, someone is paying a price for ultra-low interest rates: The patient and uncomplaining saver.
Interestingly, if traditional spenders such as firms and young households are unwilling or unable to take advantage of low interest rates, low rates could even hurt overall spending, because savers like retirees receive lower financial incomes and curtail spending.
This is not a heretical concern.
As with any tax and subsidy, the net effect depends on whether those taxed cut back spending less than those subsidised.
Economists have sensibly advocated that China raise the interest rates that it pays on bank deposits so that Chinese households earn more and consume more.
Some Japanese now wonder whether their ultra-low interest-rate policy could be contractionary.
Equally worrisome are the distortions that easy money creates.
Evidence from the recent crisis suggests that ultra-low rates prompted a wide range of portfolio adjustments, whereby Asian and Middle East central banks and funds ended up holding the safest low-interest securities, while the US and European financial sectors went on a risk-taking binge.
History never repeats itself exactly and those singed by fire learn not to play with matches, but we should be aware that unnaturally low interest rates have consequences other than inflation.
Finally, what about inflation itself?
While wage inflation in the US is contained, global monetary policy is probably excessively loose — one reason that oil prices have taken off. The Fed blames (rightly) foreign central banks that are keeping interest rates too low to prevent their currencies from appreciating against the dollar, but the Fed cannot set policy assuming others respond with a theoretical ideal.
High oil prices now curtailing growth in the US are partly an unintended consequence of current policy.
There are many things that the US needs to do to create sustainable growth, including improving the quality of its work force and infrastructure. Easier money is not one of them.
Raghuram Rajan is Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and author of Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy. Also, high oil prices have taken a toll on disposable income, impeding growth in consumption demand. This has led to a build-up of inventory — and thus to cuts in production. Recoveries are rarely without blips, especially when they are as weak as this one. But regardless of whether the factors behind the latest slowdown are fleeting or enduring, there will be calls on the US Federal Reserve to do something. Some Americans view Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as a modern-day wizard, able to revive the economy through a swish of his monetary wand — first ultralow interest rates, then quantitative easing and perhaps, eventually, money-printing. If inflation is low, they want the Fed to use every spell it knows to revive the economy. Like the World War I generals who reacted to every slaughter of their men by sending even more over the top of their trenches in a vain attempt to overwhelm the enemy, “free money” types react with “More!” if their policy does not seem tobe working. More than any other policy action, monetary policy suffers from the sense that there is a free lunch to be had. Yet the interest rate is a price for the savings that are transferred to spenders. To the extent that the Fed manages to push this price down (and some economists will dispute its ability to push any meaningful interest rate down), it taxes the producers of savings and subsidises the spenders of savings. Clearly, no government considers pushing down the price of any real good an effective way to stimulate the economy — any gain to consumers is a loss to producers and the loss typically will outweigh the gain if the market price is a fair one. So why are savings different? One view is that corporate investment is held back by labour-market rigidities (wages are stubbornly too high). Moreover, significant societal benefits — for example, more cohesive families and communities — come from investment that creates jobs, so a lower interest rate will give corporations the necessary subsidy to invest. There is, however, scant evidence that the real problem holding back investment is excessively high wages (many corporations reduced overtime and benefit contributions and even cut wages during the recession). Moreover, with interest rates for large corporations at their lowest level in decades (negative in real terms for the largest, so that savers are in fact paying corporations to borrow their money), the cost of capital is probably not the main reason why they are not investing more in the US. A huge subsidy would certainly induce them to reconsider, but should we not ask whether there are more effective ways to fix the problems holding them back? |
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| 14-Jun-2011 10:55 |
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Uncertainty, the silent jobs killer Thomas L Friedman Thanks to a credit bubble over the last decade, we created a lot of jobs for people – in construction and retail – who did not have globally competitive skills or post-high school degrees.
you want to understand why the unemployment rate in the United States has been stubbornly lodged at around 9 per cent, a good place to start is with the eye-popping mortgage statistics released last week by the economic analysis firm CoreLogic: 38 per cent of homeowners with second mortgages are underwater.
Indeed, this mortgage mess just feeds the three other big problems undermining United States job growth today:
Weak aggregate demand,
structural impediments and
an epidemic of uncertainty about what he future holds for everything from health care to the rate of taxation to Social Security and Medicare spending to the availability of credit to the general direction of the economy — the sum of which has people holding back and thus undermining the government’s stimulus.
We need to be working on all three at once and urgently.
How?
Others have focused on the aggregate demand problem, so I would like to address some of the structural impediments and uncertainty. They borrowed against the value of their homes and they now owe more than their houses are worth. The total number of underwater homeowners in America, with first and second mortgages, is a stunning 22.7 per cent. In Nevada alone, 63 per cent of all mortgaged properties are worth less than the owners paid in Arizona 50 per cent, Florida 46 per cent, Michigan 36 per cent and California 31 per cent. When people are so underwater, they find it hard to move to take new jobs, they find it hard to borrow or raise cash for education or start-ups and banks become even more cautious about lending. Until we as a country figure out how to divvy up these losses on housing, and let these markets clear and move on, they will be a serious drag on employment. |
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| 14-Jun-2011 10:44 |
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Pedestrian fined S$1,500 for causing cyclist’s death SINGAPORE Xu Yuanyuan, 19, had failed to keep a proper lookout to her right when stepping onto the road. The traffic signal was against her. This caused cleaner Lock Wai Chee, 42, who was cycling, to crash into her. He was thrown off the bicycle and suffered head injuries. Mr Lock died about five hours later. Xu, a Chinese national, could have been jailed for up to six months and fined up to S$2,500. Lawyers told MediaCorp that cases of this kind are uncommon. “It is not often that pedestrians are charged for anything beyond jay walking. Most likely it is because the repercussion of the pedestrian’s act in this case is so serious,” said Mr Premchand Soman from East Asia Law Corporation. The lawyer added that the act had led to tragic consequences and the evidence against Xu must have been very clear.
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| 14-Jun-2011 10:40 |
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NZ quake brings down more than 50 buildings WELLINGTON And there could be more aftershocks to come, the authorities warned. In Christchurch’s cordoned-off city centre, where only workers have tread since the major earthquake of Feb 22, bricks crashed down in the streets and two people were briefly trapped in a church. About 200 people were in the city centre when the quakes struck yesterday, and more than 40 people have been taken to hospitals with minor injuries from falling debris, the city council said.
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| 14-Jun-2011 10:37 |
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SingTel ups the ante Typical mobile broadband speeds Mobile broadband plan Theoretical speed Typical speed range* Classic 3.6 3.6Mbps 0.8Mbps to 2.1Mbps Priority 7.2 (with Priority Pass) 7.2Mbps 1.4Mbps to 3.7Mbps
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| 14-Jun-2011 09:58 |
Genting HK USD
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Genting HK US$
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Macau casinos face 2020 licence expiry Given the billions of dollars invested and the plans for the booming gaming industry, questions are being raised over the future of the concessions Jun 13, 2011 You would not know it from the record stock prices or the number of planned resorts in the pipeline, but Macau's unprecedented gambling boom has a built-in expiration date. Given the billions of investment dollars and lengthy construction timetables required by the Cotai-style megaresorts, analysts and investors are starting to ask the inevitable question of what happens when the first of Macau's six casino licences, or concessions, begin to expire on March 31, 2020. Will all six be renewed? Will the government exercise its right to take over ownership of casino assets? Will operators be hit with tax increases or other new fees? Will new bidders be allowed into the market? " The short answer is we do not know," University of Macau associate professor of law Jorge Godinho said at a gaming conference in the city last week. " These are matters that need to be considered and decided many years in advance because they involve investment plans with long-term horizons." The implications for Macau are huge. The gaming industry is the city's largest employer, and direct taxes on gambling accounted for 82 per cent of all government revenue last year. Macau's 33 casinos booked 188.3 billion patacas in gambling revenue last year. The 2001 law that ended Macau's gaming monopoly and the six concessions that were subsequently granted stipulate that the licences are at all times the property of the government, which retains vast powers over the licensees and their gaming-related assets in the territory. The licences held by SJM Holdings and MGM China will expire in 2020, while those of Wynn Resorts, Melco Crown Entertainment, Galaxy Entertainment Group (SEHK: 0027) and Sands China all run until 2022. Soaring casino revenue growth has been a bonanza for these firms and their shareholders, despite the 38-39 per cent gaming tax rate. As a result, analysts expect the government to use the licence expirations to grab a bigger piece of the pie. " It's not going to happen anytime soon simply because the government is trying to come to its own understanding of how to handle the issue," Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Gary Pinge said. But investors have failed to fully appreciate what he terms concession renewal risk. " I expect the government to regulate-down returns for operators," Pinge told the gaming conference. He said this could happen through a tax increase, a large licence renewal fee, or other methods. " All governments get greedy," said Nelson Rose, a legal consultant to the gaming industry. Rose said the government's power over the concessionaires meant it was almost certain to impose a licence renewal fee or tax increases. " You have this enormous power to say `Thank you for building the Venetian, it is now ours'. It always happens [when licences are up for renewal]. The only question is how bad will it be and how much [operators] can negotiate against that." The issue of licence renewal may also have an impact on projects built before the 2020-22 deadline. Sands and Galaxy both have large parcels of empty land on Cotai that they plan to develop, while Wynn, MGM and SJM are waiting on land grants for massive sites of their own. Bankers say that as the licence expiration date gets closer, finding long-term financing for planned projects will become complicated. " Investors, from a debt perspective in particular, will be quite nervous about extending beyond that [expiry] date unless there is some clarity given," Goldman Sachs managing director Eric Greenberg said at the conference. " Hopefully, the government won't wait until the last minute but will rather give some sort of indications to the market so it doesn't prevent companies from doing necessary financing or refinancing or capital raising." Casino firms have generally expressed confidence that the government will sort out the issue sooner rather than later. " It would be a big mistake to let 2020 anxiety become a major factor," Wynn chairman Steve Wynn said last month. " That would represent mismanagement by the government, and it would be the first time I'd seen that in the nine years I've been in Macau ... I think that if there was a chance that this was going to end in 2020 or 2022, we would have been told not to build the buildings." Galaxy last month opened a HK$15.5 billion resort on its Cotai site, two-thirds of which still remains undeveloped. " We are invited guests here," chief financial officer Bob Drake said. " We hope the Macau government will extend its invitation." |
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| 09-Jun-2011 13:47 |
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Employees can be a liability, or maybe not JAY GO LTZ I recently visited a business owner’s facility. As our meeting ended, she turned to me and said: “Wouldn’t it be great if you could run a business without employees?” There were no employees around. I smiled and gave the perfunctory head nod — but it was a lying perfunctory head nod, if there is such a thing. I know that many people have commented that they prefer, or would prefer, to run their businesses without employees. I do not feel that way but let me state the obvious: Employees can be a liability. Whether they are causing problems with customers, stealing, breaking things, suing you or doing something that gets you in trouble with a regulatory agency, employees can be trouble. And when trouble rears its ugly head, the owner cannot say: “I was only taking orders!” Even if you were not the one who personally hired the problem employees, you are responsible for them. That can be a tough pill to swallow. So tough, in fact, that many people choose not to hire anyone. In some businesses, you might be able to get away with working by yourself. Mine is not one of those businesses. I have 105 employees. I am guessing that some of you may be cringing at the thought of managing that many people but I do not. I have less grief today than I did when I had 10 employees. This is not a riddle. It is the law of averages, at least the way I define the phrase. If you have a bunch of average employees, you will end up with an average business. Probably not growing much. Probably not that profitable. I have written about this before but it bears repeating: It is a matter of having the right people — and enough of the right managers to deal with the occasional baloney. But it can go far beyond figuring out how to run the business without having everyone make you crazy. It starts with hiring the right people, then training them and giving them direction until they can operate on their own or almost on their own. The process can take months, a year or many years. It can work with someone who came in at a young age with no experience or someone who has years of experience, maybe more than you do. Some companies promote mostly from within, others hire “talent” from competitors. (And some think they are hiring talent from competitors when they are really hiring someone else’s problem. I’ve been both the giver and the taker in that equation.) There is an almost magical time after you have hired and groomed people who take over a part of the business. They do a great job. They develop confidence and the respect of others, and they earn a raise. They become a valuable part of your company. But there is more. At least to me. I do not pretend to speak for all business owners but I know I am not the only one who regularly appreciates, respects, feels good about and enjoys the fact that we have found and developed people who have not only done great jobs but have signed on to our adventure. This goes beyond the business. It gets personal. It is about people buying houses, sending their children to college, or even just providing for themselves or their family in a way that exceeds their expectations. I know pride is one of the seven deadly sins but I am not sure why. Is it a sin to be proud of your people? Or is it a sin not to be? Do you get a sense of satisfaction from knowing that you have given people opportunities and they have succeeded — which benefits everybody? Does this make up for the employees who don’t succeed along the way, including the ones who do serious damage to your business or your psyche? Maybe. I hope so. It does in my case. Failure is fixable. Success can last for years. But it doesn’t happen on its own. The New York Times
Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago. |
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| 09-Jun-2011 13:28 |
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China’s ‘secret’ ready to set sail BEIJING Officers from the general staff acknowledged the existence of a carrier, which one of them described as a “symbol of a great nation”, amid reports that it could set sail within weeks. The vessel in question is a defunct Soviet-era carrier, formerly named the Instead, it has been upgraded at China’s Dalian naval shipyard with combat sensors and defensive weapons and painted in the colours of the People’s Liberation Army. For several years, foreigners have been kept out of the area in Dalian where the work has taken place. But the existence of a 67,500-tonne vessel was not easily concealed and in recent months, photographs have appeared in state-run media. Mr Chen Bingde, the chief of China’s military general staff, has gone a step further in an interview published in the His assistant chief, Mr Qi Jianguo, suggested that the vessel was both a status symbol and a long-overdue strengthening of China’s naval defence. But he added that the carrier would never sail into the waters of other nations. No other details have emerged, leaving military experts to speculate whether the revamped hulk will indeed mark a significant projection of Chinese military power as a “blue water” force, or hold only symbolic value, lacking the technology and operational experience to challenge the United States Navy.
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| 09-Jun-2011 13:22 |
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Despite woes, Thomson Medical in running for service award SINGAPORE Along with 12 other organisations in healthcare and other sectors, Thomson Medical Centre is up for the inaugural Singapore Service Excellence Medallion, an initiative of the national GEMS Up movement to cultivate better service here. Other nominees include Raffles Hospital, Cathay Pacific, Changi Airport, Singapore Airlines and The Ritz-Carlton hotel. TMC made the news last November for its fertility centre’s botched in-vitro fertilisation procedure, coinciding with one survey done between October and December for the healthcare segment of the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore. SPERM MIX is nOt a servIce ? ? ? ? — Its sperm mix-up last year and the subsequent suspension of new assisted reproduction procedures at its fertility centre, have not dented Thomson Medical Centre’s (TMC) reputation for service, if its nomination for a new service award announced yesterday is any indication. |
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| 09-Jun-2011 13:06 |
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Institutions which do not provide 1800 NNN NNNN numbers fOr Customer Service Centre HOTLINE H A T E CUSTOMERS |
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| 09-Jun-2011 12:32 |
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Printing glitch in some passports SINGAPORE The ICA said in a press release last night that the affected passports are among a total of 1,280 passports that could be affected. “The printing problem affects a security feature of the passport and those affected may face inconvenience when they travel overseas if the problem is not corrected,” the ICA said. It added: “The ICA sincerely apologises for the technical glitch that has caused this problem and for any inconvenience to those who are affected.” The ICA is contacting those who have been issued these passports to arrange for the documents to be examined and verified. All affected passports will be corrected on the spot. Counters will be set up at Level 3 of the ICA Building to handle those with affected passports. The counters will be open from 8am to 8pm from Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 3pm on Saturday. The counters will remain open until all affected passports have been rectified. Singaporeans who are unsure if their passports are affected can call 6391 6611 (24-hours) or visit — The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has found “printing alignment problems” in some passports from a batch that were printed and issued to Singaporeans between May 23 and June 3.www.ica.gov.sg. |
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| 09-Jun-2011 12:27 |
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TV host must pay
Shaffiq Alkhatib SINGAPORE
Yesterday’s decision came at the end of a four-day hearing after his 55-year-old spouse, Murong Ying, whose real name is MadamYan Wen Lin, took him to the Family Court over the amount she should receive.
Mr Chin, 57, must also fork out another S$7,000, for the costs incurred by his wife in the case.
Due to a miscommunication, Mr Chin had been told that attendance was optional. He was, therefore, absent.
MEDIAN SALARY ONLY S$2,500 ? ? ? ? |
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| 09-Jun-2011 12:06 |
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It’s bubble time for Asia ... as it braces for the Fed’s QE3, leaving authorities with the quandary of how to handle all that hot money influx Pretend you’re Mr Darmin Nasution, Indonesia’s central bank governor, and inflation is running at about 6 per cent. BLOOMBERG
William Pesek is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Do you raise interest rates or cut them? This isn’t a trick question but one facing Asia’s monetary authorities as they brace for a possible third round of United States quantitative easing, an effort by the central bank to get more money into the economy. No matter what Federal Reserve officials say, waning US growth has many here convinced that QE3 is on the way. Asian currencies are rising in anticipation. Here’s where things get tricky for Dr Nasution and his peers. Normally, they would raise borrowing costs to cool prices and contain asset bubbles. Yet that may only attract more hot money as investors rush to higher returns. Lowering rates might ease the speculative capital flows but also fan inflation. These times are anything but normal as the Fed, Bank of Japan and European Central Bank have rates at or near all-time lows. Asia is on the front line of the struggle with cheap money and unprecedented liquidity. Things are about to get even more unsettling. Even if Fed Chairman Ben S Bernanke opts against tripling down on quantitative easing, it’s now clear that rates everywhere will stay unusually low for longer than many investors expected. And with the most developed economies barely growing, Asia will be getting an even bigger share of the loose cash careening around the world financial system. There’s no doubt that Asia is a different place than it was in 1997, the last time it wrestled with too much hot money. It has since strengthened financial systems, built more liquid bond markets and amassed trillions of dollars of currency reserves. This bulwark will be seriously tested in the next six to 12 months. Before the weak economic news of the past month or so, markets buzzed about exit strategies — withdrawing the monetary easing that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Fears of a double-dip US recession have returned, though, and so has talk of closing the monetary floodgate. Europe is reeling, too, with no end in sight to Greece’s debt crisis or the risk of contagion emanating from the euro zone. Japan is in bad shape as the fallout from the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis hamper spending and investment. China is stepping up efforts to slow growth and contain inflation. These days, when the Fed says it will keep rates “exceptionally low” for an “extended period”, it sounds suspiciously like “indefinitely”. That’s dangerous for Asia, which has resorted to controls to tame the capital influx. But those tools are far from effective. One reason many in Asia are convinced that Mr Bernanke will do more is because America’s funk is so persistent, almost reminiscent of Japan. The first round of quantitative easing stabilised the US financial system and calmed nerves around the globe. The second one disappointed, as evidenced by the slowest pace of growth in US payrolls in eight months during May. Congress is gridlocked, making new fiscal stimulus measures unlikely. That leaves the onus on Mr Bernanke to pump liquidity into the economy. He will face huge resistance from those worried that he’s debasing the dollar, yet Mr Bernanke may have no choice. In that way, the Fed’s experience is becoming a bit like that of the BOJ, which engaged in roughly two decades of quantitative easing. In Asia, traders have been anticipating QE3, sending the Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, Indonesian rupiah and Thai baht higher. Even Japan’s yen is gaining in spite of post-tsunami radiation leaks, a leadership void and a deepening recession. Yen bulls even ignored a May 31 move by Moody’s Investors Service to put Japan’s debt rating on review for a downgrade, citing concerns about public debt levels. “It says a lot about where we are that so many look at the yen and decide it seems the most stable,” Mr Donald Amstad, director at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia, told me in Tokyo last week. Dr Nasution’s plight in Indonesia tells another part of the story. Gross domestic product in Indonesia may rise more than 6.5 per cent from a year earlier this quarter because of an increase in foreign direct investment. Yet inflation is uncomfortably high. Consumer prices rose 5.98 per cent in May from a year earlier after having increased 6.16 per cent in April. Indonesia has refrained from boosting interest rates since February amid hopes inflation would cool. The risk is that officials underestimate the effects of increased monetary stimulus by the US central bank or others in the developed world. If higher inflation takes hold, containing it won’t be easy. Asian policy-makers must be mindful of the bubble fix. Massive capital inflows have a way of boosting growth and offering a false sense that recovery is afoot. In reality, they just create new bubbles. Asia has done an impressive job of weathering the global financial crisis. Yet its performance of the past two-and-a-half years is no guarantee it can continue to do so. |
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| 09-Jun-2011 11:55 |
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