PM Lee spoke for the first time on the minibond fiasco
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This is what he said during an interview with CNA:
“I think we have to look at the circumstances of the people who have lost money with minibonds or High Notes……where there has been mis-selling, it has to be put right; where there has been less than professional behaviour by the relationship managers, or it doesn’t measure up to the standards that MAS expects when you promote the financial product or when you advise somebody what to buy, then the banks have to do what’s the right thing to do.”
“”I think this is a very difficult and not very satisfactory way in the long run. First of all, government should not be making decisions for individuals; individuals should have the right to decide for themselves, their circumstances, their preferences, their needs. And secondly, the government is not in a position to guarantee what is safe and what is not safe because there is nothing which is 100 per cent safe.”
I think and I think in summary, this is what he meant:
1. The government is not responsible for the mis-selling in the first place, the banks have to be responsible.
2. The investors have to sort out their own problems, it is none of the government’s business.
3. Trust the banks and go through proper channels.
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I like this "government should not be making decisions for individuals", he is definitely moronic and does not know what he is talking about.
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what he means is....
if the bank break the law in mis-selling, they better do the right thing or else.
if the bank didn't break the law, and no mis-selling happened, stop bothering the banks or else.of course, this does not applies to old or lowly educated people, who is unlikely to understand the complex mis selling stuff, and thus will get their money back.
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The issue is very clear cut, you sell a faulty product, you refund the money. Justice. Propaganda cannot change justice and fairplay.
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Well, personally I like the whole idea of the government having as little part in my life as possible, but tats not how it works in Singapore, I think we are as paternalistic as any state could be, wonder why when things go awry, people always blame the govt, because that is the mindset that has been imbued in our people, and how did that mindset come about? Because it is so. So I don't really understand this sudden claim of us as a liberal state, because the last I check, I think they are a lot of things I don't really have much of a choice about to begin with.
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Originally posted by Ramseth:
This is what he said during an interview with CNA:
“I think we have to look at the circumstances of the people who have lost money with minibonds or High Notes……where there has been mis-selling, it has to be put right; where there has been less than professional behaviour by the relationship managers, or it doesn’t measure up to the standards that MAS expects when you promote the financial product or when you advise somebody what to buy, then the banks have to do what’s the right thing to do.”
“”I think this is a very difficult and not very satisfactory way in the long run. First of all, government should not be making decisions for individuals; individuals should have the right to decide for themselves, their circumstances, their preferences, their needs. And secondly, the government is not in a position to guarantee what is safe and what is not safe because there is nothing which is 100 per cent safe.”
I think and I think in summary, this is what he meant:
1. The government is not responsible for the mis-selling in the first place, the banks have to be responsible.
2. The investors have to sort out their own problems, it is none of the government’s business.
3. Trust the banks and go through proper channels.
Watch the video interview here:
http://wayangparty.com/2008/10/26/pm-lee-spoke-for-the-first-time-on-the-minibond-fiasco/
Firstly, is it not too late for PM LHL to start commenting - 'IF' - "it doesn’t measure up to the standards that MAS expects when you promote the financial product" ?Why was the MAS not monitoring the financial packages that the local banks offer to the Singaporean public ?
Are there no requirements for the banks to submit their financial products or promotion programs to the MAS for approvals, when even Cinemas are required to submit the movies for vetting prior to it being offered to Singaporean consumption ?
Secondly, Singaporeans have been telling the Government not to interfere in our lives since LKY stepped into public office, and only to do the job that is expected of them to run a country efficiently.
Since the 1960s - after the one and only manipulated referendum towards merger with Malaysia - Singaporeans have not been consulted even on issues that affected our private lives.
- "I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think." - Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987
Thirdly, if "the Government cannot be in any position to guarantee what is safe and what is not safe because there is nothing which is 100 percent safe" - can we trust PM LHL and his team of Super-Talented Ministers on any SAFE DECISION to guide Singapore through any crisis ?
In making such atrocious statement - is PM LHL denying that the Government is not responsible to supervise the MAS in its supervisionary role over the Singapore Banks - in the same manner that he has defended DPM WKS responsibility over the scandalous escape by MSK from the ISD lock-up ?
With only two members from the Alternative Parties sitting in Parliament, surely PM LHL has more then enough time on his hands to fix the Government - instead of fixing the Opposition ?
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Rule of Nation Building:
- Credit -> all the work of the poodles and none of the people.
- Debit -> fault of the people on individual decision.
Point for thoughts:
When the bond were selling high and low, the dragon's son was in charge of the helm that governs $$$.
He have to take full responsibility of the people that are being pressed into buying stuff in which the relationship managers have zero knowledge about cos his organisation have not done their job at all in checking up on this policy.
He is basically trying run away from the crap that he have created.
So, in what way does the dragon's son and his useless poodles deserve the pay rise at the end of the year considering that they have not done their job properly at level one ???
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Apportionment of blame : 30% to investors and 70% to banks.
Problems solved.
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Originally posted by AndrewPKYap:
The issue is very clear cut, you sell a faulty product, you refund the money. Justice. Propaganda cannot change justice and fairplay.
The issue is also very cut that here is a free market, u want to buy what kinds of fishes is up to you, and if a fishmonger said that his fish is better and you believe in him, so be it, you buy from him. Then you go home and cook it and find is very true that it was indeed very tasty and nice, that repay your dividends, then you start to trust from this particular fishmongers, but one day, his fishes u brought had all gone bad and when you asked for a refund, he is gone, bankrupt, no more money to give you.Does that got anything to do with the boss who open the market??
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I am not really following up this saga 100% but I thought they mentioned somewhere that lesser educated people who bought the bonds could be compensated fully or partially while the so called more educated people would be placed on a lesser priority.
This is quite unfair right? Shouldn't they treat all investors equally ?
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There is no such thing as the free market, its just a term made up by the corporations and big businesses to evoke when they need to transgress regulations to make more profit. Well, if there is a free market, let AIG and all the banks who made bad credit, who f'd around in the derivitives market fall, for the free market libertarian argument is that they should be allowed to fall, because they possess weak institutional structures in the first place. But no, we have this global rescue package to keep these hallowed institutions in operation, because government understands that should these institutions, albeit having dugged their own grave through over speculation, over lending, there will be a ripple effect and eventually people like us will lose our jobs and before you know it, we'll be in a depression. Does all that sound like we're operating in a free market? The free market only works in textbooks and lecture slides, in the real world, its just big fat cats running the show, and we if we're not careful enough, taken for fish. That's the reality of the global economy.
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There is no such thing as the free market, its just a term made up by the corporations and big businesses to evoke when they need to transgress regulations to make more profit.
That is very wise.
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Noam Chomsky: The New York Times had an article by its economic correspondent in its magazine section a couple weeks ago about Obama's economic programs. He talked about Reagan as the model of passionate commitment to free markets and reduction of the role of the state, and so on … Where are these people? Reagan was the most protectionist president in post-war American history.
In fact, more protectionist than all others combined. He virtually doubled protective barriers. He brought in the Pentagon to develop the "factory of the future" to teach backward American management how to catch up on the Japanese lead in production. SEMATECH ("Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology") was formed.
If it weren't for Reagan's protectionism and calling in of state power, we would not have a steel industry, or an automobile industry, or a semi-conductor industry or whatever they protected. They reindustrialized America by protectionism and state intervention. All of this is washed away by propaganda as though it never happened.
It is very interesting to look at a place like MIT, which was right at the center of these developments. My department -- you're teaching a course in the Military Industrial Complex -- my department is an example of it. I came here in the mid-50's. I don't know the difference between a radio and a tape recorder, but I was in the electronics lab. I was perhaps the one person who refused to get clearance on principle. Not that it made any difference; everything was open anyway.
The electronics lab, along with the closely connected Lincoln labs, was just developing the basis of the modern high- tech economy. In those days, the computer was the size of this set of offices.
By the time they finally got computers down to the size of a marketable main frame, some of the directors of the project pulled out and formed DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), the first main frame producer. IBM was in there, at the government's expense, learning how to move from punch cards to electronic computers. By the early l960's IBM was capable of producing its own computers, but no one could buy them.
They were too expensive.
So they were bought by the National Security Agency. Bell Labs did develop transistors. That is about the only example you can think of a significant part of the high-tech system which came out of private enterprise. But that is a joke too! They worked on technology.
Their transistor producer was Western Electric, who could not sell them on the market; they were too expensive. So the government bought about 100 percent of advanced transistors. Finally, of course, all of this gets to the point where you can market them privately. It was not until the 1980's after 30 years of development essentially in the state sector that these things became marketable commodities and Bill Gates could get rich.
The Internet was the same thing. I was here when they were starting to work on the Internet. It was not until 1995 that it was privatized, after 30 years. If you look at the funding at MIT, in the 1950s and 1960's it was almost entirely Pentagon. For a very simple reason, the cutting edge of the economy was electronics based. A good cover for developing an electronics-based economy was the Pentagon. You sort of frighten people into thinking the Russians are coming, so they pay their taxes and their children and grandchildren have computers.
Through the 70's and 80's funding has been shifting to NIH (National Institutes of Health). Why? Because the cutting edge of the economy is becoming biology-based. So, therefore, the state sector is shifting its priorities to developing biology-based industries. All of this is going on with accolades to the Free Market. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The point is, to get back to the new international economic order: It was a serious proposal that was immediately kicked out the window and UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) was reduced to a data collecting agency with no policy initiatives.
The new information order was destroyed, along with UNESCO. Neo-liberal programs were rammed down the throats of the poor. (Although the rich did not accept them -- and to the extent that they do accept them, it is harmful to them too.)
This went along with the great shift to the liberalization of finance. It was a disaster in the making all along; serious economists have been pointing out since the early 70's that the freeing up of financial capital flows is just a disaster in the making, with in fact periodic crises. Also, Reagan the great free marketer carried out one of the biggest bailouts in American history when he bailed out (and virtually nationalized) a major bank.
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...The next step for IMF conditions, is the demand a country turn to "market-based" domestic prices.
This is code for eliminating government subsidies or price controls. Often developing countries have state-subsidized fuel or food or other necessities for their people. In 1998 the IMF demanded, for example, that Indonesia remove state food subsidies for the poor.
The idea of "market-based price" is itself a fiction. A market is man-made.
The market in Switzerland or Denmark or Japan is different from the market in Cuba or Cameroon. What the IMF is after is a slashing of state budgets to minimize the state role in the economy and make a target country defenseless against foreign takeover of its key assets...
http://www.serendipity.li/hr/imf
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp
Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective
http://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Perspective/d
How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor
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This is what happens when we have too little opposition in parliament..no one to fight for our rights.
Look at the US and their 2 party system. When the Republicans came out with a package that was more inclined towards the banks than ordinary citizens, the Democrats stood out to reject it. After some deliberation, a more satisfactory package for the citizens was announced. If US had only a dominant party like PAP, American citizens would be dead as the financial system would have been first priority, rather than citizens due to their policies of economy first over people.
Pls..those of you dumb fuckers who were the 66.6%, vote wisely in 2011 alright. Cheers.
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Haiz.
Life goes on.
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Originally posted by Quincey:
There is no such thing as the free market, its just a term made up by the corporations and big businesses to evoke when they need to transgress regulations to make more profit. Well, if there is a free market, let AIG and all the banks who made bad credit, who f'd around in the derivitives market fall, for the free market libertarian argument is that they should be allowed to fall, because they possess weak institutional structures in the first place. But no, we have this global rescue package to keep these hallowed institutions in operation, because government understands that should these institutions, albeit having dugged their own grave through over speculation, over lending, there will be a ripple effect and eventually people like us will lose our jobs and before you know it, we'll be in a depression. Does all that sound like we're operating in a free market? The free market only works in textbooks and lecture slides, in the real world, its just big fat cats running the show, and we if we're not careful enough, taken for fish. That's the reality of the global economy.
There is a free market, there is free trade, by it is govern by laws and policies, everything need a structured framework to govern it. And it is the free will of each individual to enter or not enter the market, if you do enter, stick to the framework, if not you can just walk off. Whether it is big business setting up the free market or not, again, no one put a damn gun on yr head and force you into it, the greedness of one individual is an opportunity of another. Liquility of each market is up to each individual to study it, you cannot come and tell me you brought a pair shoes without knowning it sizes.The ability to move in and out of a market at one own willingness and risk is a free market, you are free to roam the world, but safety is your responsibility
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
This is what happens when we have too little opposition in parliament..no one to fight for our rights.
Look at the US and their 2 party system. When the Republicans came out with a package that was more inclined towards the banks than ordinary citizens, the Democrats stood out to reject it. After some deliberation, a more satisfactory package for the citizens was announced. If US had only a dominant party like PAP, American citizens would be dead as the financial system would have been first priority, rather than citizens due to their policies of economy first over people.
Pls..those of you dumb fuckers who were the 66.6%, vote wisely in 2011 alright. Cheers.
So how??, u want us to vote for opposition is it?? no problems, many peoples will said they voted for opposition when actually they crossed the PAP square provided. Then they go kopitiam or forums to shout bad here and there about the ruling party.
Very typical Singapore Uncles style, see already also sian.
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" Ah... Open your mouth"
"That's right. Remember to chew before swallow"
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Originally posted by Go:
" Ah... Open your mouth"
"That's right. Remember to chew before shallow"
I beg yr pardon, no chewing please, just suck and shallow it. -
To cut the chase, Angel, what I'm trying to say is that the theoretical framework of what we perceive as the free market isn't as free as we think it to be. Yes, we can buy and sell freely, but just simply look at what you are purchasing with your monthly purse every month - Electrical Bills (Singapore Power - Semi Government Owned Monopoly), Petrol (Oligopoly), Banks (Cartel Oligopoly). The 'Free-Market' aint that free after all right?
Free trade - sounds very nice with the comparative and absolute advantage theroms. Truth is with every free trade agreements being signed, certain nations have to close down part of their industries, so as to barter with the other side - in the process of people lose jobs. One can argue they can gain from the trade off, but at whose expense?It takes years and time to retrain workers, there is no such thing as perfect labor flexibility - where you can just take one worker in a guns factory and make him bake bread the next day. Free trade sounds great, but it has the lingering hand of the government intervening in the market as most libertarians will call it.
Yes, indeed I grant you the assumption that we are free to buy what we want, and we have to be responsible for our choices, but one cannot just argue that because of this, we have a free market, therefore those people who made bad investments got their just desserts for their bad investment choice. Because even in the quasi-'free market' we have, the firms themselves make bad choices. As I was saying in my previous post, the leviathans of the corporate world who saw "an opportunity" to increase their stake and made bad loans to people with poor credits, and ended up going bust. Under you assumption since they made bad choices, shouldn't they be responsible for those choices and be allowed to go under, just like all the other bad investments made? Yeah Lehman Brothers is gone, but the governments of the world have raised trillions of dollars to ensure that other firms do not go under. I'm not saying this is wrong, the rescue packages put out by gvernments is the right thing to do under the prevailing circumstances. But it also shows clearly, that we are not operating under a free market economy.
The Resue Plan was constructed on the basis that should such firms collapse, there will be a series of ripple effects, which will be deatremental to the global economy. People will lose their jobs, etc. The rescue plan is governmental intervention, an anti-thesis of any free-market ideology. Ron Paul was crying foul when Congress announced the 700 billion dollar aid package.
People make bad decisions all the time, and usually they end up with real drastic consequances which affect not just themselves, but everyone else. It is unrealistic to ask government to come out with a rescue plan for these bond buyers, cause it is just impratical. But what government has to be doing is to widen the social safety net at this time so as to ensure families who are affected by this can at least go on with their lives. We are talking about children, families, who do not deserve to bite the dust just because dad or mum made a wrong investment. I myself, my dad lost his job in the 97 crisis, I know what it is like. Thankfully, I have really generous and loving relatives, but I belief they are many out there who have nothing to lean on.
Practicalism or Overt Practicalism can just blind us to the needs of those around us.
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To cut the chase, Angel, what I'm trying to say is that the theoretical framework of what we perceive as the free market isn't as free as we think it to be.
Free trade favours the powerful.
"Free", yes, but it isn't fair.
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Free trade - sounds very nice with the comparative and absolute advantage theroms.
Yes, sounds fucking nice.
If you are uneducated, than you should go and work as labourer, leave more complex tasks to educated.
That is acording to comparative and absolute advantage theroms.
But that means you will forever be a labourer.
You cannot educated yourself.
You cannot go and develop yourself.
Must be a slave forever.
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Sorry lah Uncle, i simply wants to devil advocate these issue in a way to say that there is a free market. Be it oligarchism or Monopolism, it still a free market, every states and nations got is own unique product to sell in the markets.
Let me bring u back to ancient, formerly farmer A got rice, farmer B grows vegetable, and farmer C hv pigs or cows. They all go into the free market to exchange their goods so that all hv the foods required to eat. So if u said that monopolism or oligarchy is not a free trade, then i do not comprehend it. Too bad we lack of natural resource, if not we still can sell oil in exchange for sometime.
Today, in modern society we build on capital to exchange goods rather than using nos of cows for nos of pound of rice. And capital = cash. It become the most important part of our life. Then people start to manipulate with cash, that is where all problems start to bloom up. Peoples start to make quick cash thru investment without doing any farming or digging. It is still a free market for you to choose your product and choices, you get it right, you are rich, if you get it wrong, too bad. Life goes on.
What the govt infuse into the banks to help those too bad investors are said be tax payers money, you, me and all of us, our money. How on earth can we pay a poor eyesight investor investing in a free market at his choices and willingness and failed badly because of his decision and choices.????
A free market must let the nature take it course, we do pity those with family, childrens, old parents etc etc, but in a capitalism free market, there is only a minor room for compassion. That is the cruel truth of this system.