******** T R U E ******** Or #### F A L S E ####

Wednesday:  27 10 2010 

Ch 8  Good Morning Singapore  8:15am

CALL  62506851 / 62501210

DR  LEONG  [梁医生]

HAZE  is poisonous

Vehicle Exhaust discharge is poisonous

Second-Hand Cigarette smoke is poisonous

Use  salt water sprays [喷盐水] into the nose

to reduce the damaging effect 

27 10 2010

Tags: MAS

WRITTEN BY BLOOMBERG

WEDNESDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2010 12:02

Share this  Digg  Del.icio.us  StumbleUpon  Netscape  Yahoo  Technorati  Googlize this  Facebook Export PDF Print E-mail Singapore’s central bank said Asia faces growing risks from capital inflows and called for “close monitoring” by policy makers to avoid a disorderly reversal. The region’s “brighter” economic outlook compared with the rest of the world may result in higher inflationary pressures, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, said in a twice-yearly review today. Singapore’s economy, which may hit a “soft patch” in the coming quarters, should keep expanding, it said.   “Inflationary pressures remain significant in Asia,” the central bank said. “Large capital inflows into the region have continued to fuel activities and prices in the asset markets, which could also pose a risk to the inflation outlook.”   Growth in Asia is outpacing the rest of the world, prompting policy makers to raise interest rates ahead of their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe to fight inflation and prevent asset price bubbles. Singapore’s central bank signaled this month it will allow faster gains in its dollar, its main tool to manage inflation, after undertaking a one-time revaluation in April.   “The policy decision was made on the assessment that the level of economic activity would remain high, as the domestic economy would continue to expand, albeit at a slower and more sustainable pace,” the central bank said. “Compared to this year, when the manufacturing sector experienced a sharp surge in activity, gross domestic product growth next year will be driven more by the services sector.”   OVERSEAS DEMAND Singapore has remained vulnerable to fluctuations in overseas demand for manufactured goods even after the government boosted financial services and tourism. The International Monetary Fund this month lowered its 2011 forecast for world growth, citing high unemployment, public debt and fragile banking systems as risks.   “The outlook for Singapore’s key trading partners will remain uneven,” according to the report. “Notably, the advanced economies will continue to face significant hurdles in transiting from public sector-driven to private demand-led growth. While the risk of the developed economies slipping back into recession has generally receded, final demand is likely to remain sluggish.”   The city’s two casino resorts run by Genting Singapore Plc and Las Vegas Sands Corp. have attracted millions to its gaming centers, while employment growth is boosting spending at malls and restaurants. The central bank reiterated the government’s forecast for a 2010 expansion of as much as 15%, and said the $182 billion economy will “grow in line with its potential” in 2011, without providing figures.   CURRENCY GAINS The Singapore dollar has gained more than 8% against the U.S. currency this year. At its April monetary policy review, the central bank said it would shift the local dollar to a stronger range to trade in and sought an appreciation thereafter, the first such combined move in its history.   On Oct. 14, the central bank said it will steepen and widen the currency’s trading band while continuing to seek a “modest and gradual appreciation.”   The Singapore dollar “has fluctuated in the upper half of the exchange-rate policy band” since the April policy review, the monetary authority said in today’s report.   Singapore’s inflation last month accelerated to the highest level since January 2009, rising 3.7% from a year earlier. Consumer price gains are forecast to quicken to about 4% by the end of the year, the central bank said today.   Prices will average between 2.5% and 3% in 2010 and will be between 2% and 3% next year, it said. Inflation may be driven by higher global commodity prices and domestic labor and accommodation costs, the central bank said.   “Given these upside pressures to inflation, MAS deemed it appropriate to tighten monetary policy at this juncture to dampen external inflation as well as to provide the necessary macroeconomic restraint on domestic economic activity, thereby ensuring that cost and price pressures do not become entrenched,” according to the report.

CEOs win Entrepreneur award

SINGAPORE

They are Mr John Tan, Chief Executive of ACR Capital Holdings; Ms Olivia Lum, Group CEO of Hyflux; and Dr Ng Chin Siau, CEO of Q&M Dental Group.

One of the three will be Singapore’s representative at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year awards to be held in Monte Carlo next year. He or she will be announced at the Ernst & Young Awards Gala here on Dec 2.

E&Y said an independent judging panel selected the winners from a pool of over 50 nominations based on their merits in fulfilling six criteria.

These include entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, personal integrity and influence, financial performance, strategic direction and global impact.

Country managing partner at Ernst & Young, Mr Steven Phan, says the three winners are exceptional first-generation entrepreneurs who have created compelling business propositions in very niche areas.

[same  CANDIDATES    ? ? ? ?

 same  AWARDEES    ? ? ? ?]

This is the first time in the nine-year history of the awards programme that it has received nominations in such diverse fields as dental healthcare and reinsurance, he added.

Mr Phan said the nominations reflected the diversity of entrepreneurial talent in Singapore and the attractiveness of Singapore as a start-up and investment location.— Three chief executives have been named winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards for 2010.

Jonathan Peeris

Large capital inflows a risk

Rachel Kelly

rachel@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE — Too much of foreign capital is too much of a good thing. The World Bank says a risk to economies in East Asia is the return of large capital inflows, which are driving up prices and causing inflationary pressure. 

Inflation in China — Asia’s largest economy and the world’s second biggest — accelerated to the fastest pace in almost two years in September, according to data out yesterday. September’s inflation rate was 3.6 per cent over a year earlier, compared to August’s 3.5 per cent and well above the 3 per cent official target.

Helping drive overall prices higher was a 6.1 per cent jump in food costs due to shortages of vegetables and other items.

China — the world’s fastest growing major economy – is sucking foreign capital in billions of dollars at a go. And too much money — together with the domestic stimulus — is fuelling a property bubble which has prompted the Chinese authorities to take steps to prevent overheating.

World Bank’s chief economist for East Asia & the Pacific, Mr Vikram Nehru, said:

“In China the authorities have used a variety of measures to try and curb credit growth. The bulk of those measures have been through administrative means, specific targets and so forth for banks.”

“So this is part of a more concertive action by the Chinese to take some of the froth off the real estate sector and try to stabilise asset prices.”

Other countries in East Asia are also grappling with large and rapid inflows of foreign capital and are adopting different strategies to deal with the challenge.

Mr Nehru said that some of these countries were “simply allowing their currencies to appreciate and that is one way to try and absorb the inflationary pressures that might be coming through these capital inflows”.

He added that some countries had been intervening in foreign exchange markets to try and reduce the volatility of these inflows or were keeping a close eye to see what was happening in the banking systems.

G20 finance chiefs aim to avoid currency wars

SEOUL

Finance ministers and central bankers will say after talks conclude in Gyeongju, South Korea, tomorrow that they want a “more market-determined exchange rate system that minimises adverse effects of excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates”, a G20 official said yesterday, citing a draft statement and speaking on condition of anonymity.

G20 policymakers are convening amid concern countries are pursuing weaker exchange rates as a route to stronger economic growth, either by limiting currency gains with interventions like Japan or by discussing possible monetary easing, as the United States and the United Kingdom have done.

The risk is of a protectionist backlash that curbs economic growth, with emerging markets including Brazil and South Korea already introducing capital controls to stay competitive.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a

Mr Geithner delayed a report on foreign exchange markets last week, saying the yuan remained undervalued and that China needed to show continued commitment to allowing the currency to rise against the US dollar over time. The yuan has risen about 2 per cent since a two-year peg against the greenback was scrapped on June 19.

People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said his nation needed to avoid the “shock therapy” of excessive yuan appreciation and “very fast” gains probably would not end global economic imbalances.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao also warned of the dangers of a rapid rise, saying yuan gains of 20 to 40 per cent would exacerbate unemployment and cause social upheaval.

Mr Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman and Co in New York, said the US is trying to forge a united front among the G7 nations in urging China and other emerging market nations to let their currencies rise.

“How the dollar does against the euro and sterling might be different than how the dollar does against Asia,” he said. Mr Chandler predicted there would be increasing pressure on China at the G20, without an international agreement on intervention such as the Plaza Accord in 1985.

[Xtremely OUTdated  1985 AccOrd    ? ? ? ?]

[COmplacency  IncOmpetence  NeglIgence  ExUberance    ? ? ? ?]

Canada wants to “address, with our G20 colleagues, mechanisms to enhance and timelines to enhance the flexibility of currencies”, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said yesterday.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said finance chiefs need to reach a “bargain” to coordinate economic policies, though real agreement would require a “revolution”.

The US backs current-account targets to gauge whether individual trade surpluses or deficits are sustainable, and Mr Geithner wants the International Monetary Fund to take on a larger role of economic surveillance. — Group of 20 finance chiefs plan to say members will refrain from the “competitive undervaluation” of their currencies in a bid to soothe trade tensions before they derail the world economy.Wall Street Journal interview published yesterday that China needs to let the yuan rise so other emerging market nations will feel comfortable letting market forces affect their currencies, repeating a theme from speeches he gave earlier this month. He also said that “major currencies” were “roughly in alignment”.Bloomberg

today Monday October 11, 2010 B4

IMF agrees to be ‘currency cop’ after calls from world’s governments

An analysis of the UBS study (Part 2): Moving towards a Russian standard of living and way of life

August 26th, 2009 | Author: Your Correspondent

REVIEW & FORUM  Saturday: 9 OCTOBER 2010 

Beggaring the World Economy

Raghuram Rajan

CHICAGO – Global capital is on the move. As ultra-low interest rates in industrial countries send capital around the world searching for higher yields, a number of emerging-market central banks are intervening heavily, buying the foreign-capital inflows and re-exporting them in order to keep their currencies from appreciating. Others have been imposing capital controls of one stripe or another. In recent weeks, Japan became the first large industrial economy to intervene directly in currency markets.

Why does no one want capital inflows?

Which intervention policies are legitimate, and which are not?

And where will all this intervention end if it continues unabated?

The portion of capital inflows that is not re-exported represents net capital inflows. This finances domestic spending on foreign goods. So, one reason countries do not like capital inflows is that it means more domestic demand “leaks” outside. Indeed, because capital inflows often cause the domestic exchange rate to appreciate, they encourage further spending on foreign goods as domestic producers become uncompetitive.

Another reason that countries do not like foreign capital inflows is that some of it might be “hot” (or dumb) money, eager to come in when foreign interest rates are low and local asset prices are rising, and quick to leave at the first sign of trouble or when opportunities back home beckon. Volatile capital flows induce volatility in the recipient economy, making booms and busts more pronounced than they would otherwise be.

But, as the saying goes, it takes two hands to clap.

If countries could maintain discipline and limit spending by their households, firms, or governments, foreign capital would not be needed, and could be re-exported easily, without much effect on the recipient economy. Problems arise when countries cannot – or will not – spend sensibly.

Countries can overspend for a variety of reasons.

The stereotypical Latin American economies of yesteryear used to get into trouble through populist government spending, while the East Asian economies ran into difficulty because of excessive long-term investment. In the United States in the run up to the current crisis, easy credit, especially for housing, induced households to spend too much, while in Greece, the government borrowed its way into trouble.

Unfortunately, though, so long as some countries like China, Germany, Japan, and the oil exporters pump surplus goods into the world economy, not all countries can trim their spending to stay within their means. Since the world does not export to Mars, some countries have to absorb these goods, and accept the capital inflows that finance their consumption.

In the medium term, over-spenders should trim their outlays and habitual exporters should increase theirs. In the short run, though, the world is engaged in a gigantic game of passing the parcel, with no country wanting to take the habitual exporters’ goods and their capital surpluses. This is what makes today’s beggar-thy-neighbor policies so destructive: though some countries will eventually have to absorb the surpluses and capital, each country is trying to avoid them.

So which policy interventions are legitimate?

Any policy of intervening in the exchange rate, or imposing import tariffs or capital controls, tends to force other countries to make greater adjustments. China’s exchange-rate intervention probably hurts a number of other emerging-market exporters that do not intervene as much and are less competitive as a result.

But industrial countries, too, intervene substantially in markets. For example, while US monetary-policy intervention (yes, monetary policy is also intervention) has done little to boost domestic demand, it has spurred domestic capital to search for yield around the world. The US dollar would fall substantially – encouraging greater exports – were it not for the fact that foreign central banks are pushing much of that capital right back by buying US government securities.

Singapore Banks, Temasek, GIC, MAS,  were  SELLING US$ Bonds to  weaken  US$  and  Strengthen S$  ? ? ? ?

All this creates distortions that delay adjustment – exchange rates are too low in emerging markets, slowing their move away from exports, while the ease with which the US government is being financed creates little incentive for US politicians to reduce spending over the medium term.

Rather than intervening to obtain a short-term increase in their share of slow-growing global demand, it makes sense for countries to make their economies more balanced and efficient over the medium term. That will allow them to contribute in a sustainable way to increasing global demand.

China, for example, must move more income to households and away from its firms, so that private consumption can increase.

++++++++        ALL BANKS  nEEd to  raIse  DepOsIt  Interest Rates  tO  mOve  IncOme  tO  hOUsebOlds  and  retIrees  frOm the fIrms.        ********

The US must improve the education and skills of significant parts of its labor force, so that they can produce more of the high-quality knowledge and service-sector exports in which the US specializes. Higher incomes would boost US savings, reducing households’ dependence on debt, even as they maintained consumption levels.

Unfortunately, all this will take time, and citizens impatient for jobs and growth are pressing their politicians. Countries around the world are embracing shortsighted policies that cater to the immediate needs of domestic constituencies. There are exceptions. India, for example, has eschewed currency intervention thus far, even while opening up to long-term rupee debt inflows, in an attempt to finance much-needed infrastructure projects.

India’s willingness to spend when everyone else is attempting to sell and save entails risks that need to be carefully managed. But India’s example also provides a glimpse of what the world could achieve collectively.

After all, beggar-thy-neighbor policies will succeed only in making us all beggars.

Raghuram Rajan, a former Chief Economist of the IMF, 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.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.

www.project-syndicate.org

For a podcast of this commentary in English, please use this link:

http://media.blubrry.com/ps/media.libsyn.com/media/ps/rajan10.mp3

You might also like to read more from Raghuram Rajan

Pasted from <http://www.sharejunction.com/sharejunction/postMessage.htm?topicId=8799&msgbdName=User Research/Opinions>

Stop Reservations: Meritocracy is the way out

Mhttp://www.fewt.com/2010/06/democracy-not-meritocracy-eliminating.htmlonday, June 28, 2010

Democracy not Meritocracy - Eliminating the "Mediocracy"

The change to Aurora is much more than simply rebranding the operating system.  This change brings with it a fresh new focus on community involvement.  We believe in democracy as Aurora is a Linux distribution built by its users for its users.  We know that by definition, without users there is no distribution.  We also know that we aren't the experts at everything, and we look to the community to help Aurora continue to be an award winning Linux distribution.

Democracy within the Aurora community brings excellence.  Aurora users have submitted dozens of beautiful wallpapers for inclusion in the distribution, and the community is now voting for the best to be included in the release ISO.  Users with expertise in audio design are stepping in and building sounds to be bundled into the distribution.

Becoming involved within the community is a simple process, just find something that you can improve and reach out to any one of us.  In the Aurora community you won't find a walled garden where only opinions and decisions of certain individuals are absolute.

By shifting to a Debian base we have eliminated the mediocracy inherent within software developed in a meritocratic distribution.  We believe in providing fit, finish, and stability while bringing the newest software possible meeting these guidelines.  Usability is one of our core values.  Our release philosophy is simple, it is released when it is ready.  Patches, and software updates are rolled into the distribution on an on-going basis eliminating the requirement to "upgrade" the distribution every six months.  Users will find respins released on a schedule which roll up existing updates making patching simple for new installations.

Like other distributions, the Aurora team develops custom software including the Exogenesis installer and the Jupiter hardware and power manager.  Specific pockets of development are tiered in a meritocratic fashion however the development roadmap of products within Aurora is driven by its users.  The Aurora team is focused on adding features and function needed by those that actually use the distribution rather than forcing change for the sake of change.  User input is always welcome, and has been proven to improve the overall product.  Becoming involved is as simple as reaching out to us in the Getting Involved forum.

Aurora Linux - For users, by users.

Posted by FEWT at 4:00 PM

Meritocracy: