Cyprus imposes 9.9% tax on bank deposits

[sgd]

10 years ago asian currency crisis everybody in the region got hit bad but we were not affected much at all because I remember they say we invested our fortunes in europe and american economies.

Source??

My source is confidential.

But the singapore dollar is backed by a basket of currencies what they actually are is concealed and that info is not public. But what is known is that they are the currencies of our trading partners and also competitors.

singstat shows who are trading partners are.
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/statistics/vi...trade.html

The chinese too have a basket of currencies maybe they copied the system from us in the years when they came to understudy our system and they have revealed major currencies in their basket to be US dollar, the euro, the yen, and the Korean won.

Other currencies listed are Singapore dollar, British pound, Malaysian ringgit, Russian ruble, Australian dollar, Thai bhat, and Canadian dollar

Interesting to note their basket of currencies are almost the same as singstat graph which lists our trading partners. how much they copied from us how different our basket to their basket, probably the major currencies should be the same like us and eu


source http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/C...-29-06.pdf

[yeokiwi]

My source is confidential.

Since I have no access to your info, then I have no comment nor any way to analyze your next sentence/question or to have any meaningful discussion.

So if we were invested did we get out before investors there took haircuts, did we take any haircuts?

[sgd]

My source is confidential.

Since I have no access to your info, then I have no comment nor any way to analyze your next sentence/question or to have any meaningful discussion.

So if we were invested did we get out before investors there took haircuts, did we take any haircuts?

you people are really diehards

[Bibi]

You are funny. Have you taken a look at the Government's balance sheet before? Folks who have never seen the Government's balance sheet and start arguing over it are akin to the 6 blind men arguing over the elephant.

Alot of S-Chips here balance sheet also very very nice leh. I only know Jim Rogers say never trust the govt.

[HitandRun]

You are funny. Have you taken a look at the Government's balance sheet before? Folks who have never seen the Government's balance sheet and start arguing over it are akin to the 6 blind men arguing over the elephant.

Alot of S-Chips here balance sheet also very very nice leh. I only know Jim Rogers say never trust the govt.

You are funnier. Are you trying to allege things about the accountant general, the auditor general, the government, etc. for false accounting? Extraordinary allegations do need extraordinary evidence.

Incidentally, Jim Rogers says lots of things. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. Don't blindly follow what he say, observe what he does. The fact that he is staying in Singapore speak volumes, doesn't it?

---

you people are really diehards

So I can take it that you have never seen the government's balance sheet before?

For other folks who might be interested in the government's balance sheet, here's a link:

Statement of Assets and Liabilities - 31 Mar 2012

[yeokiwi]

My source is confidential.

Since I have no access to your info, then I have no comment nor any way to analyze your next sentence/question or to have any meaningful discussion.

So if we were invested did we get out before investors there took haircuts, did we take any haircuts?

you people are really diehards

Not really lah. Discussions must be based on facts and available public information. What you know may be the truth but only you know it.
I would love to bash the incumbents too since it is the in-thing nowadays. But, bashing it without any fact is just a "make-you-feel-shiok" discussion without any substance.

[AlphaQuant]

10 years ago asian currency crisis everybody in the region got hit bad but we were not affected much at all because I remember they say we invested our fortunes in europe and american economies.

in 1997, all SEA nations were hit hard. usdsgd lost 20% of its value (1.35 handle to 1.65 handle) and real estate collapsed. It is true though that S'pore had it better than some others e.g. M'sia and Indonesia. It is interesting to recall what the fiscal reactions were.

in Singapore, the G allowed the FX to collapse, and embarked on a large stimulus package. This was possible due to the budgetary surpluses. There was also little external debt denominated in USD hence there wasn't a need to prevent capital flight hence raising interest rates and hurting competitiveness. The subsequent recovery was decent.

In Indonesia, the FX was also allowed to collapse. But since there was decent foreign debt in USD and the G was running out of reserves, domestic rates was hiked to attract foreign capital to stay but this further hurt the economy leasing to depression.

In M'sia, capital controls were imposed to separate FX from the domestic economy. The MYR was pegged and domestic rates were lowered to stimulate the economy.

every nation was hurt but those with low debt (especially foreign denominated debt), high reserves and an ability to devalue ccy/provide fiscal stimulus did better.

But the singapore dollar is backed by a basket of currencies what they actually are is concealed and that info is not public. But what is known is that they are the currencies of our trading partners and also competitors.

It is true that the SGD NEER is calculated off a basket of ccys of undisclosed weightage - but every decent bank has a NEER model inhouse where the slope, mean and the width are estimated thru regression. So while one will not know MAS's numbers, it is not too difficult to estimate the rough NEER values within certain confidence intervals.

[specuvestor]

I think there are a few clarifications:

1) IIRC think SGD went to 1.8 handle and SGD FD hit 6% while IDR went to 16k from 2500 pegged. Almost all indo companies with foreign debt went broke. I don't think the govt had a choice not to let IDR FX collapse. Older folks may remember the symbol of IMF rescue: IMF chief Camdessus standing cross armed looking on Suharto signing the rescue package

Irony is more than a decade later, they are using the same ideology in trying to rescue EU after admitting austerity was the wrong medicine for the AFC. IMF is a pathetic one trick pony.

2) MYR was pegged lower and capital control in place PRIMARILY to prevent capital out flow. Dr M knows their USD reserves cannot withstand being raided. Frankly IMHO he was more astute than Anwar during the AFC.

The lessons learnt in the AFC is that foreign reserves management is important, especially the cash flow. Hence during the recent crisis you have the Fed doing US$ swaps with major asian central banks. Anyone who tried to raid our US$ reserves will be confronted with the Fed's US$ swaps. Academically it doesn't solve any problem, but traders will all know that it is a major show stopper. I think the swap is ingenius and give Bernanke credit for that little known detail.

Which brings us to the Singapore balance sheet and budget. For sure a positive budget is a sign of strength as one accumulates reserves but negative budget may not be negative if one can issue bonds cheaply. For eg now when interest rates are low, the ROIC may be high. Question is whether funded by local bonds or foreign bonds. There is a big difference between having domestic bond holders like Japan's case, as you can print money ie monetise the debt to repay, vs foreign currency bonds where you need your foreign reserves to repay. Hence it is always useful to compare foreign reserves with foreign liabilities.

And SGD is NOT backed by any basket of currencies. It is a soft peg which the MAS try to manage via the infamous NEER. However it is a STRONG soft peg because MAS controls the SGD as it is not internationalised. That is why we refused to use SGD as the backing for ACU currency during the AFC which Dr M propose, which is effectively internationalising the SGD.

From then on Dr M don't like our face.

[Bibi]

You are funny. Have you taken a look at the Government's balance sheet before? Folks who have never seen the Government's balance sheet and start arguing over it are akin to the 6 blind men arguing over the elephant.

Alot of S-Chips here balance sheet also very very nice leh. I only know Jim Rogers say never trust the govt.

You are funnier. Are you trying to allege things about the accountant general, the auditor general, the government, etc. for false accounting? Extraordinary allegations do need extraordinary evidence.

Incidentally, Jim Rogers says lots of things. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. Don't blindly follow what he say, observe what he does. The fact that he is staying in Singapore speak volumes, doesn't it?

So are you also saying alot S-Chips balance sheets here are not nice? They have tonnes of cash and its audited by independent auditor. But there will always be some bad eggs. What i am saying is what you are suggesting, dont follow blindly even with what is stated on paper. Observe what a govt does.

S-chips with tonnes of cash and dont like to pay out dividends say its to re-invest into the companies to achieve higher rates of growth. Our govt withhold CPF payout saying life expectancy has increased. Both are true and make sense.

Jim comes here could he wanted to give his daughters a chinese education as he believes the Asian growth story. Spore is the place where our govt treats them as nice as even compared to own locals. English as first language means he can blend in easier compared to HK or China. Is he a Spore citizen? If yes, his conversion does speak volumes.

[Temperament]

"They have tonnes of cash and its audited by independent auditor."

Even DBS used to be one of it's "backer" So i lost about 30+K within 1.1/2 year investing (or rather speculating as i could never know the cash supposed to be in the bank was for real or show only). Of course it's an "S-CHIP". That is so much value for annual report of a company.

So in investing just like buying a dog or animal, it's very important to investigate the pedegree of animal. That's a SGX's BLUE CHIP is always a better bet & safer than S-CHIP, hands down.
But that's not to say, there are no people who specialise investing on new companies; -the Venture Capitalists.
Cheers!