Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Singapore inflation numbers 2011 July and comparison

On the month July 2011
Singapore CPI up 5.4%
Malaysia CPI up  3.4%
Indonesia CPI up 4.6%
Thailand CPI up  4.08%

Now in Thailand, our favorite Yingluck has something new and surprising for the people again. She is going to punish speculator and help savers by raising interest rate. This is apart from implementing a minimum wages that is higher than Singapore, see this, and purchasing rice at a higher price level to help poor farmers.

The world elites and their corrupt media cried foul against Yingluck. The elites of the whole world now see Yingluck as their greatest enemy. If she is taken down in the near future, I will not be surprise. Let us pray for Yingluck.

Clearly Singapore is at the bottom of beauty contest. Our neighbours are doing better and better and meantime, the PAP talents seems to be shooting Singapore in the feet. 

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Singapore asset inflation 1: PAP the wizards of bubbleland

Few days back, while MAS Ravi Menon was ranked the worst central banker in SE Asia by Global Finance magazine, today, in Straits Times. 

A buyer has signed up to pay a record-breaking $19 million for a four-bedroom apartment at The Marq on Paterson Hill......The price for the 3,003 sq ft apartment at The Marq on Paterson Hill works out to just under $6,400 per sq foot.

We are already at the beginning of very high inflation
To buy at this price level, someone earning S$5000 would need to save every cent, get started during the reign of Louis XIV and work for 317 years.

Those earning S$3000 would need to start saving from the time of Christopher Columbus, before America was discovered.

We are already at very high inflation early stage. The official CPI level often do not reflect the true inflation numbers as its computation has been rigged over the years. Very often asset inflation is not taken into account of CPI.

Asset allow to rise, wages must be stagnant
Lee Kuan Yew said "Let me explain what happens when we make progress. HDB prices go up, private home (prices) go up, all asset prices go up. Everybody finds he owns something more valuable in the house, his shares are worth more and he can live a good life,". What he failed to mention is that whenever there is progress, the net effect is often deflationary. We are able to build HDB today with fewer people and material that cost less due to technology. We should have a lower housing price. The high property price is deliberately engineered by the government to enrich the elite.

Gan Kim Yong
Occasionally, clowns in PAP will show that wages has rise and there are plans for increment. However, our increment is more due to PAP's monies printing and perpetually falls behind CPI. The real PAP position is, wages the only component that is not allowed to rise in real term. Manpower minister Gan Kim Yong put it,"We have learnt from our experience in the 1970s and 1980s - when wages rise in response to inflation, the outcome is not desirable."

Lee Kuan Yew is really chutzpah enough to sell the idea that more expensive the house, the better. The reality is, with asset sky rocketing and wages falling in the face of inflation, the result is the formation of dynastic wealth and condemnation of a large section of population to slavery.

Runaway asset inflation mistaken for growth
Heng Swee Keat, the MAS boss won the top central bankers in Asia Pacific by a banking-propaganda magazine The Banker for a notorious reason. He was honoured for applying fiscal stimulus and loose monetary policy, Singapore came through the crisis in good shape,

Heng Swee Keat
In another words, Heng was printing monies and creating bubbles, out in the midst of the greatest recession of Singapore, inflating asset prices when Singaporean were losing jobs. And also, that means without these ponzi bubbles, our GDP numbers is going to be much more ugly than it appears.

The 2008 wall street crash, which is a good opportunity to create a soft landing is lost, thanks to the pugnacious policy of Heng. The bubble gets bigger each day, and it is going to inflict more pain for Singapore's economy thereafter.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Kuan Yew Bio 5: Kuan Yew the "socialist"

Today, Lee Kuan Yew is seem as an ultra right neo liberal whose rhetoric is often euphemism for slavery. Ironically, he was a socialist few decades back.

Lee Kuan Yew said
PAP aims to bring a peaceful and orderly transition from the colonial order into a free independent and socialist society.
The Straits Times, 16 April 1959, Page 7

No other party except the PAP could call itself a socialist party in Singapore. If anyone called himself a socialist he must be in the PAP.
The Straits Times. 4 May 1959, Page 4 

We fight those who obstruct us in achieving our aim of a democratic socialist Malaya.
The Straits Times, 5 May 1959, Page 1

PAP for a democratic non-communist socialist Malaya.
The Straits Times, 26 May 1959, Page 1

PAP was primarily of a democratic socialist stand.
The Straits Times, 29 May 1959, Page 16

We believe in a non-communist socialist Malaya.
The Straits Times, 2 June 1959, Page 1

a socialist government to bring about changes towards a more just and equal society.
The Straits Times, 1 January 1960, Page 1


improvement of party cadres' grasp of the socialist theory
The Singapore Free Press, 5 January 1960, Page 1

and many many more ad nauseam...etc

More than 50 years later, PAP promise has not yet materialized 
The society Lee Kuan Yew promised under the dream of socialism are

  • security of employment, 
  • compensation in re-settlement for attap dwellers, 
  • assistance of local manufacturer,
  • national health insurance, 
  • free education.

see this for more detail. Unfortunately the check has been bouncing back until now. These days, Lee Kuan Yew promised us something even more fabulous. He promised spurs inside our hide.

Besides, Singaporean are made to slave in order that GIC and Temasek will have monies to prove their talent in gambling again and again despite much loses. The poverty of Singapore today is largely created by PAP.

Kuan Yew Bio 4: 1959, June 30th, PAP cut their own pay

The first thing PAP did when they got first voted in was to reduced their own salary
Straits Times Page 8, 1959, June 30th, Kuan Yew slashed government job wages, due to deficit. Hence minister pay was cut as well. There is no evidence that PAP got monkey ministers when they paid peanuts, but on the contrary. Neither did our ministers jump-shipped to Goldman Sachs due to wage differences then.

But today, Kuan Yew seems to have forgotten the the days of 1959. All sorts of reason to give our ministers and government employee high wages even if our treasury may be already bankrupt by PAP's reckless speculation in Wall Street, and high public expenditure.

Kuan Yew conceded the greed of ministers
Kuan Yew said in 2007 "you have to pay the market rate or the man will up stakes and join Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs and you would have an incompetent man and you would have lost money by the billions".

In short, PAP ministers are potential thieves who would rather joined the thuggish, ponzi, TBTF banks, that defraud the whole world with financial weapon of mass destruction. According to LKY, this can only be reversed by bribing them more with monies so that they stay with the government.

However, even with so much monies paid today, GIC and Temasek are still on the way of losing all our CPF.

Once able young people joined PAP putting themselves under detention risk
PAP had its own idealist including Lim Chin Siong, Devan Nair, Fong Swee Suan who went in and out of jail. These patriots joined not for monies but rather to serve the people. Today, everyone of those young guns who helped LKY to power were purged and subsequently denigrated.

Today patriotic and courageous man joins the opposition
Many including Chee Soon Juan, Chen Show Mao, Tan Jee Say......etc forgo their material comfort, risking bankruptcy lawsuit, join the opposition to pursue the herculean task of taking PAP down.

How Lee Kuan Yew feels when he look back on those days?


Saturday, August 27, 2011

The worst central banker in SE Asia: Ravi Menon scores a B

Ravi Menon scores a B in the 2011 ranking among central bankers, see this. His predecessor talent now-minister Heng Swee Keat scored a B as well during his term, see this. Right north of us, in the capital control obsessed Malaysia,  Zeti Akhtar Aziz scores A, along with Philippines and Taiwan. Meanwhile, Thailand, the originator of SE Asian economic in 1997 is still ahead of us, scoring a B+.

Hence, Singapore stands side by side with Indonesia, for having the worst central bankers in SE Asia. Besides, on last July, MAS reported a mysterious lost of S$10.9 billion. No hard question asked by the PAP government. We are getting signs that our reserves may be in trouble.

The actual score of MAS in my opinion, should in fact be F, for being an unrepentant bubble creator, and so, a nefarious institution transferring wealth from workers to the rich.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Kuan Yew Bio 2: 1955, Nov 26th, Kuan Yew rather "chose" communism

Straits Times on 1955, Nov 26th, Pg 1. On this day, LKY said anti-communism was a barren philosophy which could produce no results. He then continue "If I have to choose between anti-communism and communism. I will choose communism because the other way is a negative philosophy"

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

France's richest: "Tax us more"

While the neo-liberal wings and their rich patron are responsible in tearing down the societies, there are still social conscious wealthy people in western countries.

Although the rich Frenchman are already contributing their fair lot to La France, they are now clamouring the government to tax them more, even when France is equitable and just, having one of the lowest GINI in the world.

Sixteen executives, including Europe's richest woman, the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, offered in an open letter to pay a "special contribution" in a spirit of "solidarity".


They said: "We, the presidents and leaders of industry, businessmen and women, bankers and wealthy citizens would like the richest people to have to pay a 'special contribution'."


They said they had benefited from the French system and that: "When the public finances deficit and the prospects of a worsening state debt threaten the future of France and Europe and when the government is asking everybody for solidarity, it seems necessary for us to contribute."


Singaporean elites have not only been extremely quiet on these issues, but studiously creating loopholes so that their tax rate could be as low as 0%, while the poor were crush under the oppressive tax load. Further more, while many in the west prosper through hardwork and ability, the richest in Singapore got there through parasitic feed on the economy at best. At worst, part or majority of their wealth accumulation are intricately connected with crime and fraud. Guess who am I referring to?

In addition, we also have GLC CEOs and million dollar ministers who got fat pay check and salary increment, because they oppress workers through -- wage suppression by importing foreigners and hiking price of natural monopoly.  

The moral decay of our elites are unrepairable, and the days of our corrupt system are numbered.   

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

At 5.4% high-inflation and 2.5% CPF interest rate, Tan Chuan Jin is going to make CPF "last longer"

Singapore CPI hits 5.4% in July 2011. This is merely the official figures which often understate the severity. Our CPF accounts are raided.

Keeping CPF interest as low as 2.5%, Minister of State for Manpower and National Development Tan Chuan-Jin announced that "we are enhancing the CPF system to make CPF savings last longer for members".

PAP seems going for another round of CPF default to "take care us during our old age". PAP will implement nothing new from what I have described as CPF stealth default, in my previous article.

  • Inflate away CPF savings. (CPF interest is lower than inflation)
  • Refusing to pay full amount and let inflation do the rest of the job. (as in raising minimum sum to S$131,000)
  • extending the lump sum payment dateline and let inflation do the rest of the job.

With the recent stock market blood-bath and the impending crash of asset in the future rounds of crisis,GIC portfolio value is going to zero. Hence, I am confident that PAP will soon announce another round of CPF rape. 

Monday, August 22, 2011

Kuan Yew Bio 1: 1956, July 9th, Kuan Yew "believed" in security of employment, compensation in re-settlement, assistance of local manufacturer, national health insurance, free education

Straits Times on 1956, July 9th, Pg 7. 
Kuan Yew "believed" in

  • security of employment, 
  • compensation in re-settlement for attap dwellers, 
  • assistance of local manufacturer,
  • national health insurance, 
  • free education.

Ironically, he is the one who implemented the exact opposite of what he has preached, and are far more tyrannical than the British colonial master. The PAP's policies are
  • creating unemployment to depress wages,
  • land confiscation against the poor giving paltry compensation, 
  • collude with MNC destroying local capital, 
  • jack up health care cost by creating artificial medical scarcity  
  • create education inflation.

Kuan Yew has completely betray his idealism, without even a trace of shame by expressing his ultra capitalistic rhetoric openly nowadays.  

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Defaulting CPF 10: CPF says gold is purely speculative investment

With the relentless rise of gold price, Singaporean have seen Sing dollar plunge to another record low, with S$2257 against 1 ounce of gold, on last Friday trading. Sing dollar has lost against gold, 25.5% and 14.5% of its value since the beginning of the year and start of August respectively. The current Sing dollar debasement is going to persist and we can say bye bye to our savings.

A little more than one year ago, I wrote an email to CPF suggesting that we should be allowed to keep our savings in physical bullion. Below is the reply I received.


The explanation of CPF is really absurd, by describing gold as a "purely speculative investment". Gold is money since 5000 years ago. The price movement of gold is not due to changes in value of gold per se, but rather, gold acts as a thermometer telling the whole world that PAP is printing monies. Gold is allocated investment limit of 10%. The other riskier asset class -- stock gets 35% and property gets 100% shows that PAP hates gold to the core.

In addition, CPF does not really allow us to put 10% of our savings in gold, but rather GLD ETF or UOB gold account. These are the most fraudulent gold investment vehicle. (I have positions in GLD using CPF and will get out of it when I sense things go wrong)

GLD and UOB are not fully allocated. They are merely fraudulent vehicles to prolong the fiat currency by channelling investment into themselves instead of physical bullion, so as to suppress bullion prices.

Gold is the ultimate protector of wealth that our government wants to deprive us. Without savings in gold, we cannot prevent stealth confiscation of wealth by PAP's money printing. And PAP is hell bent on robbing our wealth.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Maid is going to be increasingly unaffordable

The cornerstone policy that enables our woman to pursue career is the cheap availability of maid. Right now, as PAP embark the road of debauching Singapore dollar, depressing working class income, we are starting to have difficulties in hiring maid.

There is a article in Lianhe Zaobao (联合早报) pointing out that for the maid,
  • monthly wage in Canada is S$1600. 
  • month wage in Norway is S$1200, with fringe benefits like 5-6 hours of work per day and OT pay.
  • monthly wage in Hong Kong and Taiwan is S$800. 
Ridiculously, the maid wage level elsewhere is even greater than our cleaners and manual workers. With such wages differences and premium over the salary in Singapore, we are having hard times getting "talent" maid now. And as minimum salary keep rising within our neighbour's workforce, we are going to run out of maid in the not so far away future, unless we adjust upward their salary.

PAP has been forcing our woman to work using policy levers including asset inflation. The extra workforces generated lots of wealth for the corrupt PAP. Without maid, either there will be a reduction of female workforce causing asset price to plunge due to reduced family income -- or sterilizes Singaporean further as couples are forced not to have babies.

Eventually, I think we may have to pay higher for maid, and that still in turns cuts into fertility rate and contributes to rising cost of living.

Raising our wages to pay for maid? This is completely anathema to the PAP gangs in pursue of enslavement. What about sourcing maid from Somalia, Afghanistan,...etc when no one wants to accept the offer here because of low salary? With all options running out, the future of Singapore appears increasingly despair each day. 

其中一家女佣机构Kababayan Far East的经理沙玛勒说,到加拿大工作,女佣每个月能赚取1320元加币(约1600元新币),是本地薪水的三、四倍。此外,每天工作8小时,如果超时工作,雇主需要支付额外薪金,外加一周休息两天。
......


公司人事经理伊玛说,挪威帮佣每月的薪水约新币1200元,每天只需工作5、6个小时,且能领取超时费。申请到那里工作的准证只需要4个月,但是当地政府只允许女佣最长工作两年。


薪酬福利的原因,不仅使得在本地工作的女佣希望转介到欧美国家去工作,香港和台湾也是热门地区,两地的薪金约为每月800元。

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Nouriel Roubini : Karl Marx was right that redistribution of income and wealth from labour to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct

Nouriel in his recent article "Is capitalism doomed?" illuminates the evils of capitalism epitome most perfectly in the world by Singapore. Below are some of its excerpts, and it really seems to be bad plagiarism from "Das Kapital". How about an "Operation Spectrum" for Roubini when he visits Singapore.

Inequality leads to over-capacity
So Karl Marx, it seems, was partly right in arguing that globalisation, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labour to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct (though his view that socialism would be better has proven wrong). Firms are cutting jobs because there is not enough final demand. But cutting jobs reduces labour income, increases inequality and reduces final demand.

Note: This problem is solved by piling debt ponzi on people. Thats why we have 30 years housing mortgages.

Flares of fledging revolution
Recent popular demonstrations, from the Middle East to Israel to the UK, and rising popular anger in China - and soon enough in other advanced economies and emerging markets - are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world's middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities.

Tax progressively and invest on production
The right balance today requires creating jobs partly through additional fiscal stimulus aimed at productive infrastructure investment. It also requires more progressive taxation; more short-term fiscal stimulus with medium- and long-term fiscal discipline; lender-of-last-resort support by monetary authorities to prevent ruinous runs on banks; reduction of the debt burden for insolvent households and other distressed economic agents; and stricter supervision and regulation of a financial system run amok; breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and oligopolistic trusts.

Note : Right now in Singapore, the exact opposite occurred. Asset inflation, hollowing out of productive industries and parasitic growth of financial industries.

Success of Singapore in another angle
Another question arises, why does shitbag LKY is so successful while running his kingdom inequitably?

I would provide the answer on future blogs but I would want readers to imagine a Singapore on the size of the world. If that happened, revolution will occur tomorrow. In short, Singapore is an anomaly parasitic state which survive by sucking out vitality from others, by means of money laundering, wage arbitration..etc.

Protecting our wealth in the impending economics crisis 2

Physical Bullion ETF
In contrasts to GLD or SLV, physical bullion ETF are fully or almost fully allocated. These ETF often commands a higher premium over spot precious metal price. The more popular most such as PHYS and PSLV can command at times 19% premium above spot precious metal.

However one should not underestimate the danger of government's desire to confiscate bullion. The ETFs for their visibility and availability make them good target.

That happens over and over again in history. One of the recent confiscations occurred in USA, the so-call most democratic country in the world.

Digital gold currency
Digital gold currency is in essentially retail bullion banks. They are supposed to be 100% backed by physical bullion. Customer may be at risk of being defraud by Digital gold currency provider, if the later rigged its gold reserve data.

All paper bullion involves counter party risk. And if one really wants to hold paper bullion, among the various provider, Goldmoney is the most trusted among the precious metal bug community. Goldmoney is deemed more reliable than majority of the paper gold product, including futures contract or gold certificate.

(The writer hold no position in Goldmoney and is not responsible on any lost incurred by anyone who invest in it)

Gold and Silver Futures 
The future contract of precious metals are cleared by the extremely corrupt COMEX. At times, it provide a leverage higher than 30 times. COMEX is a tool of central bankers for downward manipulation of precious metals.

COMEX is notorious of rigging the games in favor of corrupt bullion banks especially JP Morgan and HSBC. Some times during the end of last April and start of May, COMEX hiked the silver margin on five occasions in eight days causing the silver price to crash, wiping out many speculators and bailing out big banks.

In addition, there are persisting rumours and speculations of impending COMEX default. By and large, upon an event of insolvency of JP Morgan or HSBC which hold concentrated short precious metal position, COMEX may default wiping out investors.

Derivative based precious metal ETF
The derivative based ETFs is popular as it magnify the gain when the underlying precious metal moves. The DGP UGL and AGQ magnify the gain by two times. The DZZ, GLL, ZSL are two times leverage in the inverse direction.

No one knows exactly the terms and counterparties of these leverage ETF. Many speculate that the eventual underlying instrument of these ETF would still be hedged by COMEX future contracts. And investors of these ETF must be acutely aware that the breakdown of COMEX will renders the value of these ETF to zero.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Another Shin Corp debacle

Ho Ching, an expert on buy high sell low
Reuters reports.

A unit of Singapore state investor Temasek is selling an almost 8 percent stake in Thai telecoms firm Shin Corp for as much as $316 million, in an attempt to increase the free float of the company, IFR Asia reported.


Cedar Holdings, majority owned by Temasek, is selling 253.5 million shares of Shin Corp at between 35.5 and 37.25 Thai baht each, in a deal that could raise 9.44 billion Thai baht ($316 million), IFR reported.


The price range reflects a discount of 6.9-11.3 percent to Shin Corp's closing share price of 40 baht on Wednesday.

It is a significant discount from the 49.25 baht a share that Temasek-linked units paid in 2006 to purchase a controlling stake in Shin Corp from the family of Thailand's former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Thailand's minimum salary is higher than Singapore

Today, there is an article on Reuters that paints Yingluck's administration negatively.

The government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra took office last week and will present its policies to parliament next week, around Aug. 24.


Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Kittirat Na Ranong told reporters that among the priorities were a minimum wage of 300 baht (S$12) a day, a starting salary for university graduates of 15,000 baht a month, a cut in company taxes, a reduction in fuel prices and a campaign against drug use.

"Other governments would have insisted on economic growth, which is understandable. But what we care about most is not just growth, but increases in people's income, and how to distribute this higher income to everybody fairly," Kittirat said.


The government seems determined to push ahead with the populist programme that won it a landslide election victory on July 3, although some economists warn this could set off a wage-price spiral.


The proposed nationwide minimum wage, for example, would mean an increase of 90 per cent in some provinces, which is bound to hurt small businesses. These firms say they would not be helped much by an offsetting cut in corporate tax to 23 per cent from 30 per cent.


The government also promised to double the farmgate price for rice to 15,000 baht per tonne, which exporters say will make Thai rice uncompetitive and could cause it to lose its position as top exporter to Vietnam.


In reality, there is not too much of socialism in Yingluck's proposal, but rather a long due rectification against social injustice. Nevertheless, the minimum salary of S$12 a day will add up to S$360 monthly, that is more than what our foreign maid get.

Comparing to our cleaners and manual workers earning S$650 a month, the poorest Thai worker is not far behind in purchasing power. The monthly salary of the poorest Thai worker buys him 128 Big Mac, while the poorest Singaporean counterpart got 148.



Meanwhile, the prostitute Reuters describes Yingluck as "populist", fear-monger "price wage spiral", and accuses Yingluck of hurting export.

If according to those prostitutes that raising minimum wages by such undignifying amount causes price wage spiral, then high wage countries like Switzerland, or UAE would have seen hyper-inflation. The accusation of "hurting export" do not stand under scrutinization either. The export oriented economy serves only as a tribute to USA whereby countries ship surpluses to USA for free. Why not keep the surpluses for the citizen's consumption?

In the backdrop of global warming, grains from Thailand including rice are now slated for an upward correction. On the event that Thailand ban rice export, we will see the prices of rice hike through the roof hitting parasitic states including Singapore. Thailand will can only be better if she keep stuff for her own consumption, and probably would have even earned more reserves if she plays the rice card similar to OPEC playing the oil card.

In addition, rising income level will stimulate domestic consumption, which is good for a country. It can be explained as follow. When income rises, citizen spend more, and when citizen spend more, the factories produce more. When factories produces, income rises again. That forms a positive feedback loop.

Yingluck has now incur the wrath of the rich people all over the world. The western media has almost nothing good to say about her and her brother, and international rouge banksters are almost certain to attack Thailand.  

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Singapore hosts world most profitable casinos 1: Foreigners are enslaving Singaporean

Singapore has the dubious honour to be the host of world's two profitable casino. The Marina Sands and RW Genting have been making monies beyond the wildest dreams.

Giving casino licence to foreigners is an act of treason
PAP always laments hypocritically that we are short of entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, this situation is created by PAP on their calculation. PAP could have awarded the gaming licence to local hoteliers and forced foreign casino operators to be minority stake holders. If that has happened, today the world most successful casino would be run by Singaporean. We would have built our gaming brand and we would be able to create casino MNC. Running casino is never difficult.

Unfortunately, the most profitable casino licence in the world went to foreigners, a Malaysian Chinese and a Jew from USA, totally unrelated to us. Nevertheless, history has been repeating itself in the world. There are numerous precedences in which PAP colludes with foreigners to destroy local industries. (will write more about it in future blogs)

Singapore must wake up to the fact that without destroying PAP, we will increasingly be enslaved by foreigners.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Protecting our wealth in the impending economics crisis 1

Since 1970, SGD has lost more than 94% against gold
As crisis looms, our ministers are urging people to save. see this and this. But right now, our negative interest rate is punishing savers and rewarding speculators. Besides, as US embarked on QE to infinity causing Sing dollar to be debased in real terms, we'd be fools if we park our monies in banks. Hence, a logical person will invest in precious metals, especially gold and silver.

Hoarding gold is the best to hedge against government's money printing. In Singapore, PAP will blame bad weather, demand of China..etc for food prices or other commodities hike. If we have a gold back Sing dollar, we can only see prices getting cheaper.

Where and how to buy gold
Physical gold bullion can be obtained from UOB with a hefty 7% GST. The best place in the world to buy physical is HK, for 0% GST. HK Bank of China is quite a reliable retailer. Buying coins incurs a higher premium but reduces the risk against counterfeiting.

Beware of GLD
GLD is the only gold ETF currently listed in SGX. GLD is never fully allocated and the fact that GLD's gold is being stored in the vault of HSBC is a strong indication of scam. HSBC is being speculated among the pundits to be one of the largest shorts in the gold future market.

Beware of UOB precious metal saving account
UOB PM saving account look extremely suspicious as with many similar PM accounts offered by other financial institution. First, there is no way to find out whether UOB's account is fully allocated. In the case of non-allocated account, you can be sure that once COMEX default, UOB is going to follow suite.

The days of hedging inflation by property are over
Over the years, corrupt PAP has collude with cronies jacking up property, and pushing ever more Singaporean to park their wealth there. Right now Singapore's property is over leverage, and worse, good collaterals are gone as salary get depressed.

And if we priced property in gold, it barely budges since 1970s, even though the population exploded more than 150%.
Property priced in SGD and priced in gold.
Year 1960 as 1 unit.
Since 1960, property has increased 25 times if priced in SGD, and 1.5 times if priced in gold.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Rice price hike: The coming of perfect storm

The elites know this very well. They can enslave the citizen in whatever way they like, provided food prices are kept low.

Right now however, it seems that rice price is slated for a belated rise. In Thailand, Yingluck promised to help poor farmers by increasing rice price by 100%. See this. Right after election. PM Yingluck keeps her promise. Immediately plans were announce to hike rice price to 15,000 baht. and this.

Big cheers to Yingluck, and may God bless her forever, may she has a long life and stays beautiful eternally.

Recently in Japan, rice futures has spiked incredibly by 40% triggering circuit breaker, due to a fear of rice shortage because of Fukushima nuclear incident. See this.

Meanwhile, we can be sure that PAP is going to blame Thailand for making us suffering high rice price. The truth is, PAP's high stealth taxation and property inflation has taken away our shock absorbing buffer against food price increase.

In addition gold exploded against Sing dollar right now touching S$2191. MAS is printing monies like crazy screwing everyone of us.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Collapse of GIC and Temasek Holdings 2: GIC crashes

Within a little more than ten days, all major stock indices have plunged with S&P down around 14%. Right now, I can't find any fundamental reason that stock market will rise. Probably QE to infinity will help somehow, at great cost. But the real solution is nothing short of revolution or drastic reformation, that overthrows the current corrupt world order.

GIC results benchmark against gold. Source: GIC

Our reserves inevitably are hit due to the fact that GIC is playing poker all over the world. All those "talents" in GIC seem not be able to match the results of old days central banks when reserves are held in gold. Delving deeper into GIC's result, we can conclude that in real terms, GIC is losing monies.

The gain of gold is not an increase in value per se but due to monies printing. So anything below the yield of gold implies that the asset is losing its value. With the economic storm coming over the next few years, it is likely that GIC is going to lose all our CPF.

While stock is plunging like nobody, gold just broke another record against Sing dollar today, hitting S$2092. 

Saturday, August 6, 2011

PAP may have squandered most of our gold reserve

Recently, I have been writing about US default and warning everyone about the precarious conditions of our US treasury bond positions. It seems that my predictions are unfolding as yesterday, S&P has downgraded US credit rating. All reserve except gold plunge.

Upon the worst outcome whereby everything are blown-up by the worthless GIC, we may still find console in the meagre 127 tons of gold that had mostly been purchase by the Goh Keng Swee. However, there is a high possibility that most of our gold are gone.

Our gold reserve according to data from MAS
First, data from MAS has lumped physical gold, with gold that are loaned out by MAS as well as gold swapped. That is enough to send chills down the spin. IMF defines the terms below.

Gold loans or deposits are undertaken by monetary authorities to obtain a non-holding gain return on gold which otherwise earns none. The gold is “lent to” (or “deposited with”) a resident or nonresident financial institution (such as a bullion bank) ...

Gold swaps are usually undertaken between monetary authorities. The gold is exchanged for foreign exchange deposits (or other reserve assets) with an agreement that the transaction be unwound at an agreed future date, at an agreed price......

In short, both gold deposit and gold swaps are forms of lending out gold, in exchange for "collaterals" of worthless fiat currencies or junk assets.Our gold is gone. In the most brazen fashion of creative accounting, PAP has booked "gold lended out" as part of our gold inventory, together with physical bullion.

Besides, people do not borrow our gold bullion just to keep at home. They dump it into the market after borrowing, hoping to profit by buying back at lower price in the future. Unfortunately, over the last ten years, gold price has increased an awesome 600% from US$280 to US$1650. There is no way our debtors are going to buy back those bullion and return to MAS. Our debtor will be dead bankrupt if they try paying us back our bullion, and they will never.

The outcome is PAP will let those swindler off-hook by accepting the worthless collaterals, instead of suing for bankruptcy and recovering our gold. Singaporean are all screwed. 

Friday, August 5, 2011

All fiat currency collapse eventually

Theoretically, fiat currency works better than gold standard, according to the works by Irving Fisher and Milton Friedman. Unfortunately, to trust the paper currency is equivalent to have faith in the scumbags of the central banks, including the MAS. We are taught that communism does not work because of human weaknesses, that is the same with all fiat monies.

Singapore dollar itself is fiat. It is also derivative of a basket of currency because it is mainly backed by the US and Euro, the world's two main reserve currency, in addition to investments of GIC. Now US and Euro are competing in a race to the bottom beauty contest, we will see SGD losing value in real terms accelerate further. Unfortunately, MAS will never do the right thing to buy gold.

Right now, everyone is being screwed everyday by MAS, but sadly, no academics and journalist are raising any red flag to warn us.





Thursday, August 4, 2011

Defaulting CPF 9: Now US raise their debt ceiling, PAP is going to play sucker

On 1st Aug last Sunday, White House and congress have reached agreement on raising the debt ceiling. According to sources, under the deal, the US debt ceiling would be raised from the current US$14.3 trillion (S$17.2 trillion) by as much as US$2.4 trillion, enough to tide the Treasury over until after the 2012 elections.

That is to say USA are to to default again after 2012 unless there is around round of debt ceiling raise. Meanwhile, fully aware that USA are going down the road of default, PAP lend ever more monies to USA for the past one year, up by by 41% to US$57.4 billion in US treasury securities alone.

In my opinion a default today is a better solution for us. Our CPF will then be wiped out, and Singaporean will  be awaken to the fact that PAP has been trying to ruin us for these years. But right now,with ever raising debt ceiling, FED is going to print more monies amounting to stealth default. Not only the current CPF account holder will be wipe out, the future CPF is going to be worthless, and apart from that, we will going to have a hyper-inflation.

Worse, PAP may persist to lend monies again to deadbeat USA even though it is fully aware that we are not going to get back the monies. Right now, the main proxy of PAP that lend(give) monies to US is GIC, by means of buying the junk US government bonds. And a large chunk of GIC's capital come from CPF.

A few days ago, there are reports of Korean central bank has purchased gold. As a matter of fact, central banks has been hoarding gold for centuries, instead of setting up something like the worthless GIC. The day when GIC shut down and convert all its asset to gold, is the day we know our government is doing the right thing.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Debunking the manipulations of unemployment data: PAP cooking statistic

A few days ago, again CNA reports another rosy unemployment rate of merely 2.1%, a slight increase of 0.2% from the previous month. Unfortunately, PAP's released statistics are only as good as fantasy. Looking at PAP's data over the pass decade, our unemployment rate reported by PAP (Singaporean cum PR) swings between 2-3.5%. Meanwhile, even the World Bank, which is well-known for massaging unpleasant figures, report our jobless rate above 5% most of the time, in the past decade.

I estimate that the true unemployment numbers for Singaporean is probably closer to 8-9%, and that does not take into account of under-employment. Singaporean are living in a desperate situation.

The difference between World Bank data and Singstat on unemployment. The World Bank data can be viewed below. Graph taken form my previous blog.
How the manipulations is done
There are beliefs among well-informed people that unemployment figures are adjusted lower via fraudulent interpretations of raw data. Looking at the fine prints upon released of statistic, one often see suspicious lines such as "seasonally adjusted"......etc.

Besides, it is well-known that governments in many countries do not account discouraged workers as unemployed. In simple terms, when somebody cannot find a job within one year, for example, he is taken out of unemployment statistic. The reason given by government is, that person is no longer interested in looking for employment. The only explanation of divergence between PAP's data and World Bank, is the existence of the above mentioned manipulations.

Data from World Bank 2006 - 2009


Data from World Bank

Further Data on unemployment in World Bank [link]