Sunday, May 15, 2011

Jim Rogers on the retriement of MM and SM

My American friend left me this message on facebook. I wouldn't have known how investor Jim Rogers is feeling so soon except for her. Here is what she posted.


  • Joani Weiss Jim Rogers said that it is not a good thing when the old Singapore government starts to leave...looks like it is starting to transpire.
    32 minutes ago · 

Investors hates risks that is beyond their comfort zone. Political risk is one of the worse, which is to unpredictable to them. We also do not like discontinuous change but such events will happen in any nation's history. They are always unplanned and the best one could do is not to be naive about it and always be vigilant. Such a time has arrived for us.

How our nation was born will always define the path it takes into the future. Versions, which I hope are less scary as those of the sixties will always visit us and we have to successfully overcome them. Our location, its surrounding geography and our small size makes this all but certain. Our small size dictates that we have an adequate military to back up our diplomacy. I am glad this is ingrained in our population, but I am also surprised some opposition parties don't get it. They will get a good education from the voters on this one.

Investors time horizon are almost always shorter than ours. E.g., they think of rising real estate prices, we think if our kids can afford them. Looking out toward different time scales cause us to act differently. Since we need their helpful presence here, we must return to stability as soon as possible but without shortchanging ourselves. That was the mistake of the PAP government. It has forgotten to put Singapore first. It might have sold to themselves that it was for the long term, but that case was not workable. They had forgotten market forces would not redistribute wealth. Government distribution is bad no matter how enlightened or clever it cannot help people regain the dignity of earning their own living.

UPDATE:
I can't find any news articles about anxious foreign investors here. Perhaps the media is mostly liberal than pro-business. It would become clearer in the days ahead.

The way the news is breaking and spreading everywhere, does the PM has a choice any more whether to accept their departure? Didn't he grasp the context that would emerge? It is important that a PM is able to do this. His job is to see further, warn us and get everyone to ride in the correction direction.

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