America and China battle over the dollar

America and China battle over the dollar

It's out in the open at last. China has thrown a challenge to America. Beijing wants a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar.

Urging reform of the international monetary system, Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan called for "an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run".

President Barack Obama fought back, calling the the dollar "extraordinarily strong" due to confidence in America's economic prospects and said there was no need for a single global currency.

"As far as confidence in the U.S. economy or the dollar, I would just point out that the dollar is extraordinarily strong right now," Obama told a nationally televised news conference. "The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world," he said. The New York Times has the full transcript of the press conference. CNN is showing the video.

One reason why the Chinese central bank governor wants the dollar replaced as the international reserve currency is to reduce capital flow to America. He said:

Currently, U.S. dollar is used in most international trade and financial transactions, and is also the most important reserve currency. The IMF data showed that the U.S. dollar accounted for 63.9% of the total foreign reserves by the end of 2007. When countries increase savings and if these savings are in the form of dollar denominated foreign reserves, capital will inevitably flow into the US.

In another speech, he said:

A super-sovereign reserve currency not only eliminates the inherent risks of credit-based sovereign currency, but also makes it possible to manage global liquidity.

He even cited Keynes -- who preferred welfare states to communism and totalitarianism -- to back up his argument. He said:

Back in the 1940s, Keynes had already proposed to introduce an international currency unit named "Bancor", based on the value of 30 representative commodities. Unfortunately, the proposal was not accepted. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system... indicates that the Keynesian approach may have been more farsighted. The IMF also created the SDR (Special Drawing Rights) in 1969... Yet, the role of the SDR has not been put into full play...

He added:

Special consideration should be given to giving the SDR a greater role. The SDR has the features and potential to act as a super-sovereign reserve currency. Moreover, an increase in SDR allocation would help the Fund address its resources problem...

Zheng not only attacked the dollar but also defended China's current account surplus, high savings rate, Confucianism -- almost everything except Beijing's policy towards the Dalai Lama.

Both his speeches are available in English on the People's Bank of China website.

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The Modern Feudal Society

The Modern Feudal Society

“However, all this came at the great expense of the common man. He gave up many freedoms for his security. The question we ask you is: Was it worth it?” - The Feudal Structure of the Medieval World

The classic image we have of the medieval serfs or peasants is that of the farmer- scratching a living on small plots of lands belonging to his lord. During harvest time, the bulk of his produce will go to his lord while leaving him with just the bare amount required to survive till the next harvest. In return for the so-called “protection” of his lord and for the “privilege” of working on the small plot of leased field, a serf or peasant was beholden to his lord. For a peasant, life was hard and in actual fact he was little more than a slave with just a little bit more rights.

We singaporeans like to think of ourselves as modern free men living in a first world democractic society. We think we own the HDB flats we live in and we are free to do with our lives as we please. But the truth is, most singaporeans are really little better than a modern day serf. The day we enter into bondage and agree to sign away the rest of our lives is the day we decide to lease a small plot of land from our overlords flat from the HDB. These days the price of a flat from the HDB can cost anywhere from $150,000 to over $700,000 for a privately built condo-like HDB flat. For most newly weds still in the spring of their lives and careers, it would mean taking a bank loan that takes anywhere from 10-25 years to repay.

So now, you’ve got no choice but to work your ass off to pay back a 20 year loan for the small pigeon hole you’ve just leased from the HDB for 99 years. A few years down the line, if you decide to buy a car, it could mean taking another 5 year loan. Since newly weds rarely have much of any savings- the bulk of which will go towards their wedding preparations anyway, any renovations would probably mean taking more loans from the bank. Now you are up to your neck in bank loans for the next 20 years of your life. How free do you still think you are? Even if you hate your job and your boss sucks, you’ve got no choice but to swallow your pride and toil away because you need to service those loans or be turned out on the street a bankrupt.

And that’s how throughout history the people in power has always sought to perpertuate that power- to create a large segment of indebted people among the population so that they can be easily be controlled and manipulated.

We might as well have someone crack the whip over our backs. Is it any wonder that we have been referred to as lesser mortals.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25049.1

Still a climate of fear

Still a climate of fear......

It is not clear what happened to a certain "JohnLaw2012" in the CNA forum - he stopped posting abruptly a while after he gave information about the bonus received by CDC staff. For all you know, "JohnLaw2012" could be on holiday at a remote resort in Maldives where there is no Internet. But it is what CAN happen to him that makes Singaporeans fearful. Our anti-whistleblower laws in the form of the Official Secret Act (OSA) makes anyone who leaks information on wrong doing by the authorities a criminal. Unlike other countries which offer rewards and protection for whistleblowers, anyone who blows the whistle on this govt breaks the law and is a criminal - why would a govt that pride itself as one having extraordinary integrity resort to such laws....
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Official Secrets Act - A person found guilty of communicating classified information, obscene photos under Section 292 of the Penal Code would be liable to imprisonment of up to 3 months or a fine or both.
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JohnLaw2012 violated the OSA when he leaked what appeared to many as excessive remuneration for civil servants in the worst recession Singapore has ever faced.
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WayangParty interviewed PoThePanda who claimed that he was taken into custody by the police and asked to confess to 'crimes against the state' that he said he did not commit. It is not possible to verify his story even if it is true but people generally don't and won't find his claims incredulous. Singapore is a country which holds the world record for the longest detention without trial [Link] and no regret has ever been expressed for committing this act.
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Sedition Act - A person found guilty of using seditious remarks to promote feelings of ill will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore shall be liable to a term of prison not exceeding 3 years or a fine not exceeding $5000 or both.
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The Chinese tried to impose a similar law in Hong Kong and the people took to the streets to protest. Why? The Sedition Act is a 'catch all'. Someone criticising a govt policy can be accused easily of 'promoting feelings of ill will' between classes e.g someone says GST hurts the poor can be accused of seditious remarks...simple as that.
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Internal Security Act - Section 20 of the ISA ...anyone who issues or circulate a publication or document which is calculated or likely to lead to a breach of peace or to promote feelings of hostility between races or classes of the population shall be liable upon conviction to a fine of up to $2000 or imprisonment for a term of up to 3 years or both.
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The PAP govt claims that these laws are necessary for national security but many countries bigger, smaller and more diverse are just as peaceful without them. The truth is these laws help to promote a climate of fear and prevent the necessary reform to their system of govt that will benefit ordinary Singaporeans. This is the only system in the world where the leaders can get such high salaries and still maintain their power and control over the people.
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I took down my blog yesterday when a few of my friends got really worried and called me when the WayangParty became inaccessible. All socio political bloggers in Singapore face enormous risks from a govt that have laws in place send them to jail - all it takes is for the PAP to feel insecure and they will do it to preserve the system which gives them enormous benefits. Perhaps yesterday was not the day...maybe tomorrow...or next month or next year. Who knows when that day will be...just like Operation Spectrum when a group of Singaporeans had their lives disrupted. After all these years, Singaporeans still live in a country where can't speak your mind freely without fear....

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25047.1

Massive ISD operation is underway...

a. Regular CNA forumer JohnLaw who first reported on the CDC bonus has not been seen.
b. Wayang.Party has been shutdown by ISP.
c. Blogger PoThePanda was investigated by the police & ISD for his articles.

I receive a few emails that a number have been followed. Something may be on.

I'll be back once the picture is clearer.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=24942.1

A murkier Films Act

A murkier Films Act

In 1998, a blanket ban on political films came into existence and 10 years later, the PAP government began to “rethink”.

With that, Parliament passed a bill yesterday (23 March 2009) to amend the Films Act - but in a way that it confounded more than clarified certain perspectives.

Last year, some had already sensed something amiss when it was revealed that the Act would be liberalised in stages, with a dash of new laws and a preview of what they may comprise.

Several prominent netizens then called for a total, one-off repeal of Section 33 of the Films Act instead.

Choo Zheng Xi, editor of The Online Citizen, could not be more than spot on when he said in December 2008, during an interview with Channel NewsAsia, that it would be “messy legislation” if repealed in stages.

Indeed, it turned out to be.

The legislation is now official and opened frontiers that were previously restricted - but three new areas are engulfed in obscurity.

1) Filming of illegal events become illegal

The principle of law states that a person is “innocent until proven guilty”.

After the police arrest people who may have broken the law, the judiciary is ultimately the body that delivers the verdict.

However, filmmakers may have to play the role of a judge to know if an event is illegal or otherwise.

Should a filmmaker be convicted but the defendant(s) are acquitted, what would happen remains curious.

Should the defendant(s) be pronounced guilty, the filmmaker would probably be left to suffer sleepless nights.

2) No animation, please

“Animation” is defined as a “rapid display of a sequence of images or positions in order to create an illusion of movement”.

With political films not allowed to display animations, the government was in effect not liberalising films but Microsoft Powerpoint presentations.

In the first place, Powerpoint presentations were never banned and Workers’ Party members have used it for the party’s closed-door events.

Even then, one wonders if switches between various slides in such presentations would be termed as “movements”.

While on the topic of “new media” in his National Day Rally speech last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was waving a video camera - without realising that one is not even needed to generate static images.

3) “Partisan” or “non-factual” films are “no-no”

Are manifestos of political parties - one of the items listed by the Straits Times - not partisan?

Perhaps the PAP has to include footage of the opposition in its own films or it would be deemed to be making partisan films.

Then again, the PAP is of the opinion that opposition’s mantra is never factual, case in point being the WP’s “time bombs” and “poisons” in its manifesto.

Hence, it is tantamount to saying that the opposition can never make any political films without contravening the law - or they could try to make one extolling the PAP.

All in all, there are liberalised aspects that defeat a blanket ban but the progress could have been better - and less ambiguous.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25295.1

The ascent of money

The ascent of money

The financial sector in Singapore is not yet as big as that in Britain or America. Fortunately, one may think, or the downturn may have been worse.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry’s fourth quarter survey shows financial services accounted for just over eight billion Singapore dollars out of a total gross domestic product of 64.3 billion Singapore dollars ($42.6 billion). Manufacturing contributed 16.6 billion Singapore dollars and construction more than 11 billion. Business services contributed more than nine billion, wholesale and retail more than six billion and information technology more than two billion.

In other words, manufacturing and construction remain Singapore’s biggest industries. While there were more than 593,000 jobs in manufacturing as of September 2008, the financial sector employed more than 160,000 people – more than 135,000 worked in financial institutions and the rest in insurance. And they were the best paid of all the workers in Singapore, earning more than 6,000 Singapore dollars a month on average, while IT workers made more than 5,000 Singapore dollars, factory workers just over 3,600 Singapore dollars and construction workers just over 2,600 Singapore dollars a month, according to the Manpower Ministry’s 2008 third quarter labour market survey.

Financial workers are the highest paid for the same reason that the government wants Singapore to be a financial hub – for that’s where the big money is.

Read The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson to get an idea of the incredible amount of money in the stock markets and the banks. The financial sector dwarfs all other industries. Here’s a clip from The Ascent of Money, which was shown on Channel Four.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3C-OaWTB_U



Ferguson, a British economic historian, writes in The Ascent of Money, published last year:

In 2006 the measured economic output of the entire world was around $47 trillion. The total market capitalization of the world’s stock markets was $51 trillion, 10 per cent larger. The total value of domestic and international bonds was $68 trillion, 50 per cent larger. The amount of derivatives outstanding was $473 trillion, more than 10 times larger.

Planet Finance is beginning to dwarf Planet Earth. And Planet Finance seems to spin faster too. Every month seven trillion dollars change hands on global stock markets. And all the time new financial life forms are evolving… An explosion of “securitization”, whereby individual debts like mortgages are “tranched”, then bundled together and repackaged for sale, pushed the total annual issuance of mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities and collaterized debt obligations above $3 trillion. The volume of derivatives – contracts derived from securities, such as interest rate swaps or credit default swaps – has grown even faster, so that by the end of 2007 the notional value of all “over-the-counter” derivatives (excluding those traded on public exchanges) was just under $600 trillion. Before the 1980s, such things were virtually unknown.

Ferguson writes how the financial sector has grown in importance.

In 1947 the total value added by the financial sector to the US gross domestic product was 2.3 per cent; by 2005 its contribution had risen to 7.7 per cent of GDP. In other words, approximately $1 out of every $13 paid to employees in the United States now goes to people working in finance. Finance is even more important in Britain, where it accounted for 9.4 per cent of GDP in 2006.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=24868.1

Exclusive interview with blogger Gary Tan Yeong Hong

BREAKING: Exclusive interview with blogger “PothePanda” who claimed he was arrested & interrogated by police for a post he made on STOMP (Parts 1 & 2)

March 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Top Story

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DISCIAMER: The video clips shown below contain an interview with blogger “PothePanda” aka Gary Tan Yeong Hong who claimed he was arrested and interrogated by the police for a post he made on STOMP. We are unable to prove or disprove the allegations made by him against the police. Please contact him at yangfengsg@hotmail.com if you have any queries. The owners of this blog will not be responsible for any misrepresentation or misinformation arising from the content of the interview to which the liability lies solely with the interviewee. Please exercise utmost caution and discretion when viewing the clips.

Prologue:

On 13th March 2009, a blogger with the moniker “PothePanda” who was also a regular forumer of STOMP and Hardwarezone posted a statement on his blog at Xanga alleging that he was arrested by the police on 2 March 2009 for an article about molotov cocktails posted on STOMP late last year.

“PothePanda”, whose real name is Gary Tan Yeong Hong, is a regular reader of our blog. On 2nd March 2009, we received an email from him seeking legal advice for his predicament. We referred him to a lawyer Mr Chia Ti Lik who was also a prominent human rights activist. Gary claimed he was told by one of his interrogating officers to post the “truth” about what happened on his blog which he did on 13 March 2009.

After obtaining legal clearance from Mr Chia Ti Lik, we decided to interview him to learn more about his experience. The 45 minute interview was conducted near Gary’s home in Hougang on 21 March 2009 by a freelancer engaged by us.

SUMMARY:

1. How Gary was arrested by four plain-clothes policemen at his home on 2 March 2009.

2. The content of the alleged post he made on STOMP who got him into trouble with the police.

3. How he was interrogated by four police officers at the Cantonment Police Complex.

4. The posts he made on STOMP and Hardwarezone during the last three to six months were traced by the police.

5. The statement he was asked to sign at the end of the interrogation.

PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0b6RJeRfLM

PART 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bYiC8esaqo

EXCERPTS OF INTERVIEW

wayangparty: Can you tell us in brief what happened on the day?

Gary: The four policemen showed up at about 11am on 2 March, a Monday at my place. They told me that they are investigating the case of a molotov cocktail post which I made on a forum. I was taking a bath then. They said I could choose to follow them back or they can handcuff me. They didn’t tell me the charge. I followed them back with my laptop.

wayangparty: Why did they arrest you for putting up the post?

Gary: They claimed that I instigated the old man to burn MP Seng Han Thong which was ridiculous because what I posted was taken from Wikipedia so let people to have some information pertaining to computer games and the post was made 3 weeks before the incident.

wayangparty: Where did you post the alleged article?

Gary: STOMP Talkback forum.

wayangparty: What is the content of the post?

Gary: Basically history of the item, its usage in other countries throughout the years. (Nothing was written on how it was made.)

wayangparty: Can you tell us more about your encounter?

Gary: First, they tried to nail me down on the molotov cocktail posting. My impression is that they did not take a look at the date of my posting, they thought I posted it after the MP incident, that’s why they arrested me, but once they realize it, they are blurred and don’t know what to do.

wayangparty: How many officers interrogate you?

Gary: Four of them. They tried to use the ‘carrot and stick’ or ‘good cop - bad cop’ method. Sebastian was leading the investigation for the first place. He said I was an intelligent guy and don’t wish to see him going in and out of jail when I can be a useful citizen of Singapore and if I confessed to whatever he wanted, he will help me to become a useful citizen of Singapore. It doesn’t sound right to me. If you have any evidence against me, you can come and charge me. Now you are saying even if I am not wrong, I should confess so that you can help me.

wayangparty: What did they want you to confess to?

Gary: They asked me if I participate in a conspiracy against the state of Singapore. Did I participate in terrorism activity? They did not show me any evidence. I told them I got nothing to confess and I rather they don’t help me. So after that, they tried another method. They continuously insulted me saying things like “You stay in a 3 room flat?It’s like a pig’s sty.” “You remind me of a donkey,of a mule.You are just an animal that needs to be shown who its master is.” “Some people say you can lead a donkey to water,but you can’t make it drink.Today I am here to force you to drink.” “You write rubbish,everything you say online is rubbish.”

wayangparty: Do you know where this Sebastian is from?

Gary: He did not mention and his pass was flipped backward, but I will let you know why I think he is from ISD later.

wayangparty: Is the police aware of what you have written on your blog?

Gary: I believe they have been tracking my blog and even my offline activities. They give me the impression they have been doing so. During the interrogation, they are able to quote that the content of my posts in the last 3 to 6 months. I post on STOMP Talkback forum and Hardwarezone forum.

wayangparty: What is the statement they asked you to sign?

Gary: My background, where I stay, everything else in the statement is basically my past background, all the mistakes I have committed in national service, what internet nicknames I used on the internet and the internet forums I go to.

More stunning revelations from Gary to be heard in Parts 3 and 4 of the interview tomorrow…..

APPENDICES

1. Official PothePanda statement posted on Xanga on 13 March 2009:

2. PothePanda posted on his blog verifying that we had conducted an interview with him on 21 March 2009:

Source: PoThePanda

http://wayangparty.com/?p=6797

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