Friday, July 11, 2008

My view on LKY's views

This is how a well-respected politician trouble-shoot stock market. Some imaginations required to read in-between-the-lines.

Rephrased. Thailand economy is sound but politics is a problem due to corruptions. So stock market is down.

Malaysia is one of the wealthiest countries in the region. The politics is a problem, because of problematic politics the economy is bad – mismanagement of country resources. So stock market is down again. (25% down from the top – added by me).

Singapore is great, I will sue you if you dare to say Singapore is corrupt or mis-managed the country resources. (Stock market is down – 25% from the top - added by me)

Is this what I'm hearing? Come and invest in Singapore -– why go to a corrupt country like Thailand o a mismanaged country resources like Malaysia? These countries stock markets will go down by another 20% if they cannot solve the problem in 1-year time. He sounded positive the problems cannot be solved timely. Great salesmanship, LKY, no wonder FDIs are still flocking into Singapore. Unfortunately your stock market is also down.

SINGAPORE, July 10 — In remarks on recent developments in Thailand and Malaysia, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said — in response to a question on the future of the Asian region — that he is filled with “dismay” that these two countries have run into severe problems:
“It fills me with dismay because these were potentially promising countries, promising economies, but now they've run into some very severe problems.

“Why? Because in Thailand, they say corruption. So to stop the corruption, they have a coup. Then they have another election. But the election does not solve the problem of getting (former) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's influence removed. So they have all kinds of new rules and laws to disqualify his party or the new party... So as a consequence, you look at the stock markets, it's gone down. The economy is sound, the politics is a problem.

“You look at Malaysia. The economy. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the region. It's got oil, it's got gas, it's got palm oil. All the commodities it has. It's also got a manufacturing sector.

“But suddenly, it's trapped in some political-cum-personal difficulties of charges and counter-charges which can only be bad for the economy. I think the KL Stock Exchange has gone down by some 20 per cent. I don't track it, but I know it's down.

“If you have confidence that this will be resolved in 6 months or 1 year, then you buy. If it's not resolved and it goes down another 20 per cent, then you've lost...

“But I see all these problems as man-made. It's not economics. It is lack of a certain integrity in the system that you are entrusted with and you therefore run it properly.

“People can say anything they like: Singapore is undemocratic, we trip our opposition down, this, that and the other. But if you say that this government is corrupt or has mismanaged the country's resources, I'll sue you!

“And they still do that. And the Western press supports the people who say that because they want to see us down.

“But because we sue them again and again, nobody in Singapore believes that anybody is doing anything that's criminal, corrupt or improper. So we can make a mistake — and everybody knows you can't be 100 per cent right every time — but nobody has profited from that mistake.” — Singapore ST

1 comment:

Raymond Lum said...

Yes Singapore share market has come down lately but in three decades, their currency has gone up from S$1:RM1 to S$1:RM2.4 recently. A vindication of their relative economic prosperity and increasing purchasing power.

Whereas with all the natural resources we have, easpecially the twin oils, we should perform much much much better in the past, present and future. But the opposite is the sad truth.

So, in this competitive global environment, the turtle doesn't always win out the hare.