Today, the global newspapers are reporting a seriously gloomy view of the US economy, acknowledging that it is growing slower than the Fed had expected. Last night, with his head down most of the time, Fed Bernanke said that the US economy is recovering from its worst financial crisis and the most severe housing bust. Recent data showed a rise in the unemployment rate to 9.1 percent in May. It now faces additional pressures ranging from the effects of the Japanese disaster to global pressures in the commodity markets.
If you have been keeping yourself current with world events and are concern about the Asian markets, where do you see our investments, savings and the Sing dollar heading for?
Many SilverHairs are resigned to having to work until 62 or 65. For the luckier ones, retirement savings are in insurance, CPF and bank deposits. Luckier ones have a house or condo to rent out. Still, we have many friends around us with good adventures in trading shares and other instruments.
Do share and discuss. How are we affected by the US economy? Where is the direction as you see it. Respect for the views of other members appreciated.
Terence Seah
Alamak, your thread has not a single patron. Will do the first sale with you then.
I miss KT Wong. He wd hv a lot to say if he were still active in this forum.
At abt the same time he rocked n rolled here, I already took the view that the US/Europe economy are not smthg to look up to for the lead; rather, it’s Asia, particularly China (I did miss out India tho), and the oil rich Middle East.
Sadly, some in this world still cannot shed their forefathers’ servitude attitude of once being colonised. They will need to take a lot more beating b4 they come to terms with their misery, and to realise that Asia (as well as Brazil and some parts of Latin America) are the ones to deserve their bows. The SPGs will throw away their sarongs to wear samfus and qipao.
The easy way to make money is to gamble. Descendants of economies which hv been successful for decades into centuries, are lulled into this comfort zone, into complacency, into choosing a no-sweat-get-fat way of making a living.
So, we saw minibonds, hastily assembled mortgage units, index tradings, ETFs…..in the forefront.
Meanwhile, those with oil continue to produce oil, those who play catch-up in manufacturing, speed away, and those producing what fill the tummy hv bumper harvest.
Ultimately, the tangible is substantive and will outlast gambling den operators. You need my farm produce, you need my machines. I dont go to yr gambling table. In a standoff, who will feel weak knees first?
Luckily, in between time, the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg will appear bcos they are still a clever and creative people.
But nothing, to my mind, can ever replace the food that feed you, the fuel that drives yr engines – and the people with the attitude and spirit to work hard to make the tangibles which the world can never do without.
Hi Tim,
What will happen to the world, if we dont have to eat to grow up. We dont need water, dont need meats, vegetables and water. We dont need fields or the fishes in the oceans. And, no one needs to grow rice, wheat or fruits, and of course, we dont need to go to the toilets. There will be no restaurants, as we dont need food.
The Americans will continue to beg the streets. Dollar will dip further and the RMB keeps climbing the steps around the Great Wall. The Aussies are contented to bow to the Chinese for the next 20 years. Not too sure where Japan will head to.
Unfortunately, we need food, water and energy. W also need medical care, someone to hold our hands when we are lonely and a bed to rest on at the end of the day. Dont forget, we do need someone to hug and hold on to tightly.
We can go to the US for holidays, but then maybe our energy can just take us to Batam. Does it really matter if the US economy does down further? After all, it was already messed up during the bush days.
Ah Huat, maybe this is not new news, but I read that with the high US job unemployment, the guys are heading towards Asia for jobs in bigger numbers. Well, Singapore is the next Las Vegas. Gee, that’s a lot of people coming into Singapore or through Singapore. Now, we have to be careful about the vegetables we eat. Not cows, not chickens, but tow gays.
Maybe, that’s why this thread has only one patron, and that’s you, Tim. This is a boring topic. But then look around the Posts on this forum. Everybody is travelling. Yeah!
Terence Seah
Terence, it will be an ideal world if men survive without food and water. Not least, there wont be so many uprisings, unrests the root cause of which is due to hunger.
But will people grow up without food?
The ideal world becomes closer to perfection if people dont grow up. All – starting with Adam and Eve – will remain as babies. It will be a happy sight to see babies making love to babies, producing babies. How one baby comes out of another is another question.
The Germans, the Americans, the Jews are some of the angmohs I wont dare to write off. Like the Japs, if they get a really hard knock, they will come back fighting and stronger.
The Western economies may be wallowing at the moment, with China and Asia emerging as the next economic powers, but they will come charging back again only if they react to the awakening shock of seeing more and more of their folks digging drains and washing cars in under=developed nations.
Back to the baby talk.
If we dont grow up we dont grow old. Then, we wont be left in nursing/old folks homes naked and be thrown abt like bags of rice.
If we dont grow up, we wont know that the President’s powers are quite a sham in truth – that his power to protect the reserves is to act in accordance with the cabinet’s advice, that he is to consult a Council which is appointed by the Govt. OTC wdnt hv grown up, contested and got himself so upset.
Then we wdnt hv to worry over faltering economies, over whether we get all the CPF $ at 55 or 65. We wont think of owning a condo since it’s abt the same crawl up a HDB flat, and the condo swimming pool is a potential drowning/killing field for babies.
Best, you will enjoy it more crawling than trekking during your Golden Triangle holidsys.
Hi members,
My take is the US economy started deteriorating steadily from the mid-70s as US labour costs continually increased and the first industry “knocked-out” was Detroit’s automobiles as Japan by the mid-80s begun to produce cheaper motor cars which run on less fuel plus improving quality.
To reduce costs, by the early 90s more than half of US manufacturers outsourced abroad, General Motors to Thailand and Nike to Indonesia and followed soon by the service industry where call-centres were easily accomondated by English-speaking Indians and Filipinos, with the latter and South Americans making up more than eighty percent of US’s shipping labour force.
By the late 80s USA, later copied by the Little Red Dot, opened its door wide to South American labour whom now manned more than eighty percent of US retail/security guards/delivery cum warehousemen and other low-semi-skilled jobs.
Without the IT “saviour” industry and the boom of the Asian Tigers(Taiwan,HKong,Spore) plus the other “three” of Thailand,Malaysia & Indonesia, the US economy could have crashed by the mid90s.
By the early 90s as a consequence of the “squeezed” manufacturing industry, increasingly more Americans turned to IT & finance jobs and hence by the late 90s, to get an edge over one’s competitor, a new financial instrument was introduced, that being Deviarative, specifically a functionally Gambling-product as it leads to increasing leverage(someone else’s money) to make one’s own and this bubble just had to burst when the housing highly IOU-mortgages “overblew the baloon” thus mirroring US economic motto “let the market decides” for Americans believe the Market is an Excellent Corrector, never mind the consequences.
From the late 80s, increasingly more younger Americans below 40yrsold, worked for not more than three or four years, then resigned from their jobs and spent the next three to six months or more “seeing the world” with more than half of them as the Backpackers.
My take is ex President Bush had wasted his eight years in office by fighting wars instead of “fixing” US economy and the “static” US education system.
Hopefully, another Gates will appear soon to boost the US economy and on the other hand US financiers had learnt a thorough lesson from their own undoing of recklessness and greed.
On guard-duty at two condos and one service-apartment, I did struck up conversations with expats, working or residing here, and the conclusive opinion of them about the Lion City is its Law & Orderliness – My wife and daughter are safe at any shopping mall even after 11pm.
Regards
Abel Tan
i see 2 extreme scenarios…
a weak US economy
pains him to the core,
a 3rd Age guy with a Midas touch
that glitters no more!
his investment property he cannot sell;
his mounting debts he cannot repay;
his younger-day fighting spirit
he cannot depend now to save the day!
Meanwhile miles away…
an old guy is reading the paper;
US economy waning? he eats a cake;
he sips his coffee; he flips the page;
he’s more interested in the E-coli outbreak.
-copyright
2 cts worth of reflection
Hi Tim Liu #3
Your perception of the Germans, Jews, Americans and the japs that they will charge back when they are down is worth much to be contemplated deeply.They cannot be so easily written off. Where do we find some of the most creative people in the world? Who got the most number of Nobel Prize? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are some of the many oustanding persons who have contributed immensely to the country’s GDP and to the world at large for innovative products.
The American dollar may lose its value gradually but this does not mean the country is going down the drain. One thing is for sure. The devaluation of the currency will tend to boost export and reduce import thereby reducing the contry’s trade deficit. USA is still the biggest consumer market. Many economies still depend on this market for their creation of wealth. One of the richest women in China imports the used newpapers from US for recycling.
So we can expect that the Americans will be around and do a lot of kicking for a long time to come.
Robert-O, honestly, it’s not my perception.
I was guided by a bit of history – contemporary history to be correct – to make that assumption.
Come what may, I just wish that the world will be a better place for all to live in, that those who work hard and honest will be richly rewarded than conmen who use your money to create wealth for themselves.
Will soon be checking into a relatively new local hotel for a swim and relaxation before plunging into serious – dead serious – work again.
Have to help boost the economy even on a Sunday. Sigh.
I woke up in cold sweat last night.
The lingering feeling I had for several days of the stock market come crashing down, came alive in my sleep.
My investments are substantially in stocks & shares. My head tells me to act but i am doing nothing. Too focussed on smthg else.
So I can only rest my hope that I hv visionary and strong leaders up there to steer us clear of any onslaught of a storm.
On leadership, he now says he is not to stand for Presidency this round. To my mind, it’s a very correct decision.
That he first dismissed it in early May, then re-considered, requested supporters to pick up Eligibility Form long b4 the Proclamation (yet to be made todate), and now dropping the idea altogether shows indecision, stuttering….a tad short of the maturity imperative of a Man to hold this Land’s highest office.
He is a decent chap. If he has honest friends to give him good feedback as well as he making his own effort to really get to the ground to know (instead of tweeting and playing with blogs), he shd be ready in 5-10 years time.
Lately, many of them hv become internet addicts, playing the computer and spending time chatting and receiving feedback. They will go crazy very soon.
Shrouded and anonymous, netizens will ask you to kiss yr ass. You will be in a dilemma if the majority of them say so.
We need leadership with a heart. But no less, a strong and no-nonsense leadership. Only then will we be able to ride the storm unscathed. A leadership which starts to listen to everythg to score endearment and “like” shots is taking the slippery ride downhill.
The Tale of the 2 Silly Women.
Out at 1.30 a.m. to JB for supper and look-see? What do you see at this ghostly hour? Assholes and ass-whores galore. Iheir purpose of going there is suspect.
MFA has a new leader. Being new, he has still to make friends and is not fettered by memories of golf, festive feasting. He can be tough and he will be. And he is.
Not only silly but stupid and foolish to the core if the gals were to commence legal action against the North Govt.
They can talk tough till their teeth decay. But once they act tough and set foot in there, they can be arrested. Ignore not the fact that they had breached immigration law, and can be punished.
A satisfactory closure to this episode is to let the NG take disciplinary action against whoever had wronged them, and learn from it.
Yes, learn to do squats in the nude. Do it at 1.30 a.m. in their own safe bedrooms. Guarantee they will hv restful sound sleeps henceforth.