It’s finally happened: Stuyvesant Town is in default. So we can kiss our US575 million goodbye (yes, it’s our money, and for those who don’t like to count in USDs, it’s SGD 805,000,000 – even the geniuses at GIC have to concede that the number is equivalent to quite a few GCBs).

Source: Temasek Hedge

Sigh. Our government controlled investment firms are building up a bad track record of trusting others’ track record.

The 4-per-cent guaranteed floor rate for their Special, Medisave and Retirement Accounts (SMRA) in their Central Provident Fund (CPF) will be reset at 2.5 per cent.

That means, the interest CPF members earn – while technically pegged since last year to returns from long-term government bonds plus 1 per cent – could, for the first time in years, fall below 4 per cent in reality.

Source: Today

Temasek plays shares in the market and took multi billion dollar hits.

Now the Singapore government tries to conserve its cash and turns around and starts cutting back CPF interest payment to its shareholders, ie the citizens.

Of course we all know that they are also trying all sorts of ways to delay us from withdrawing our CPF money.

We do not have confidence in this type of administration to manage our money. Please get out.

Bailing out on Barclay’s with massive losses, Temasek forgets to tell Singapore’s citizens about it

Source: Asia Sentinel

Disgusting.

Mr Tharman told Parliament that Temasek’s portfolio grew $56 billion from March 2003 to November 2008, even after taking its recent sharp decline into account, averaging a return of just over 15 per cent a year during that period.

The minister said Temasek’s $58 billion fall in value came after a ‘much greater gain’ of $114 billion over the preceding five years.

Source: The Straits Times

The sale of Bank of America shares which Temasek booked hugh and unknown losses occurred in May this year. If we include that loss, would the damage be more than S$58 billion? We still have no idea. Why is Tharman not getting this piece of critical data from Temasek for us, and instead chose to provide information for up to November 2008 only? We would have expected Tharman to do better, given that he is still clinging on to his ridiculously high salary, unless he is just trying to massage the figures to paint a better picture to defend his boss.

Mr Tharman said that it is for Temasek, not the Government, to comment on its investment moves. He said it is the responsibility of the board and the management to make individual investment decision, whether large or small.

Source: The Sunday Times

Temasek is 100% owned by the Ministry of Finance. The board and management of Temasek is fully accountable to the Ministry of Finance. As the Minister for Finance representing the single shareholder of Temasek, if Tharman cannot even said Temasek ****ed up on this investment, then he should stop taking those million dollar salary from the people of Singapore.

Update 2: We corrected the numbers and apologise for our mistake. Thanks for pointing out to us that some of us cannot do primary school mathematics.

Update1: We wrote to Ignatius Low

To: ignatius@sph.com.sg
Date: Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Subject Response to: Temasek should clear the air

Dear Ignatius

We commend you for the piece you wrote today.

PM Lee and Ho Ching are the ones that should clear the air, and their seats.

Civic Advocator

Singapore’s state-owned investment vehicle Temasek Holdings sold all its Bank of America (BoA) shares in the first three months of this year, resulting in estimated losses of between US$2.3 billion (S$3.4 billion) and US$4.6 billion.

Source: The Straits Times

There are 3.64 million Singapore residents in 2008. Therefore, the loss of S$3.4 billion translates to S$934,000 per person.

PM Lee, Ho Ching, this money could have been distributed to every Singaporean. That would have made everyone a very rich person. Instead, your family was watching our ship and “somehow” decision was made to lose it to Americans.

Please go away and don’t make any more investment decision for us. We do not need you.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) said on Friday it will convert its Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) preferred shares into common stock in a bid to shore up the troubled U.S. lender.
GIC said it will exchange its convertible preferred notes for common stock at a price of $3.25 a share, which compares with a conversion price of $26.35 under the terms of the original investment.

Source: Reuters

Our government is averaging down and increasing exposure on a single bet. If Citi survives, this will be great. If Citi goes down the pit, there goes our money. Sigh.

Likewise, the public should not waste its energy on the short-term losses of Temasek, but see the greater picture: Temasek as a symptom of the government’s forceful belief only it can secure Singapore’s economic future. It is time for the government to share the steering wheel with the private sector, and take a backseat, instead of driving the economy into their chosen road.

Source: The Online Citizen

All I want to say is, it is a good thing for Singapore that Ho Ching, who has a spectacular track record of making lousy investments to date, leaves that place.

The assets of Temasek ultimately belongs to all Singaporean, not a small group of people. If I am not happy about the performance of this small group of people, then ranting about them on Internet or coffee shops is a waste of time. I will think of ways and start to take action to get rid of them from the system.

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

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