Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Pink Elephant In The Room

Why not just elephant in the room, why need to be pink ... cause its more significant than just being an elephant in the room ... ITS PINK as well!!! And the bulk of developed countries are ignoring it, for their own benefit. Tharman is saying something very important, something that needs addressing and redress. My comments in blue.


SINGAPORE (April 7): The world economy needs something like a modern-day Plaza Accord to safeguard growth against currency market volatility, according to Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

The remarks by the Singaporean official, who is also a former finance minister, come a week before Group of 20 officials gather in Washington to discuss the state of the world economy. Similar calls ahead of a G-20 finance ministers meeting in Shanghai six weeks ago were rebuffed by top officials who said the world economy isn’t on the brink of crisis.

“We can’t keep hoping that the US Fed will postpone normalization of interest rates,” Shanmugaratnam said on Thursday in Mumbai. “But we have to have some way of preventing that eventuality from also meaning significant instability in exchange rates and capital flows at a time when Japan, Europe and China are facing very different economic conditions.”

While central banks including China, Indonesia, the euro area and Japan have pumped more stimulus into their economies since the Shanghai gathering, the moves haven’t been part of a coordinated push. Shanmugaratnam said an agree- ment modeled on the Plaza or Louvre accords would help boost growth for emerging markets as the world economy gets stuck in “second gear.”

Tharman is saying something thats critical to the global economy. We need an accord, in particular an Asian accord, because globally the world has a few trillion in debt!!! - WHO THE FUCK DO WE OWE? ... bulk of debt is from developed countries printing press, the debt is a book entry and the printing press goes into overdrive overtime the developed economies encounter a crisis - be it oil crisis, internet exuberance, sub prime mess, etc... and every single time its the smaller, more disciplined economies that get whacked.

All the while, smaller economies had to accumulate reserves that kinda backs the currency, and all the while the developed nations create book entries to pump more money for themselves to get out of trouble. After the hoo-hah, the smaller economies come out worse every time. There is no reward for discipline but the system rewards big bullies.

Market ‘short termism’
“Imperfect, doesn’t guarantee stability, but it is better than leaving it untidy to the short termism of the markets and the self-reinforcing expectations of the market,” Shanmugaratnam said. Coordination on exchange rates would include intervention operations and involve “an understanding as to the zone in which we would like the major exchange rates to be,” he said.

Shanmugaratnam made the comments while sharing a stage with Indian central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan, an outspoken critic of unconventional monetary policy. In an interview on Wednesday, Rajan called the global economy “un- stable” and worried that a reluctance to return to normalcy would lead to “ QE infinity.”

While Rajan didn’t comment directly on Shanmugaratnam’s proposal on Thursday, he said they agreed on many issues.

“The question we have to ask ourselves is are we moving in the right direction, is there a better way, could we at least try and make sure that we don’t impose costs on each other as we try to co


me out of our own difficulties?” Rajan told the conference. “Certainly there’s a lot of room for discussion.”

‘Constant volatility’
The G-20 finance ministers ended a meeting on Feb 27 with a commitment to use all policy tools to strengthen growth. The officials also pledged, for the first time, to consult closely on foreign exchange rates.

At the Plaza Hotel in 1985, the US, UK, Japan and Germany agreed a deal to bring down the dollar through concerted sell- ing on the currency market. They came together a year and half later in Paris with the aim of stabilizing the greenback after successfully engineering its decline.

“It has to be on the table for us to think about and not expect perfection,” Shanmugaratnam told reporters on Thursday. “But the alternative is one of constant volatility, and the emerging countries especially at the receiving end.” — Bloomberg LP 

Friday, April 01, 2016

Deciphering Business Talkingcockology

I read an article from The Edge which piqued my interest in how our minds are numbed by the business talkincockology. This is all in jest but it would help if we all are a bit more blunt and straight forward with our views. My comments in blue.



SINGAPORE (March 30): Sembcorp Industries plans to manage costs tightly and optimise operations and resources while maintaining flexibility through prudent financial management, says CEO Tang Kin Fei in the company’s annual report for 2015. 

("manage costs tightly and optimise operations" - both notions were non existent before ??... yea, we used to spend flagrantly and never bothered to switch off the lights or aircon ... " 

This one gets me all riled up, "optimise operations and resources" ... THIS WAS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE HIRED FOR in the first place!!!, why tell us now??? Its like a choir boy from a Catholic church saying "I am supposed to be good, God is love". Fuck me silly.

"maintaining flexibility through prudent financial management" - to all fresh grads, when you can say something by coating the bad news in flowery extended words, you are on your way to be CEO - basically maintaining flexibility, what kind of flexibility, .. its sacking of staff of course... we are flexible to reduce staff, thats what you are really saying.)


Tang says the marine, energy and water engineering group must overcome the near-term challenges of the global down- turn in the oil and gas sector and a competitive power market in Singapore. “Our strategy is sound and as a group, we are in this for the long haul,” says Tang.

(err ... which listed company IS NOT IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL??? "Strategy sound"... if it was, you would have anticipated or prepared for the huge correction in oil prices and downturn in global shipping business better. I am still waiting for someone to be honest and say that the oil price correction was much more severe than anyone can prepare for, at least then I know we are dealing with brutal honesty top-down.)

Sembcorp’s marine unit has been hurt by the sharp fall in oil prices. Sembcorp Marine, one of the world’s biggest marine and offshore engineering company, reported its first ever quarterly loss last month. Geographically, Tang sees India and China utilities operations growing into major profit contributors in the future. 

 Tang says it is important to build Sembcorp’s future as a global company.
“This means taking advantage of value-enhancing, strategically attractive opportunities that may arise, and also building platforms for growth.”

(Wow! the last line takes the cake, how to say a lot of words that are basically numb-skulling and brain-freezing. Saying a lot that is obvious without saying anything. Basically its like me saying:

Lubricate your posterior's cavity as we will propel a cylindrical shaped object through the orifice = Fuck your ass.)