Lagenda Temasek

Chinese stocks had a miserable week as persistent concerns about moves to tighten policy and worries about bank fundraising prompted the market's worst run of losses for 16 months.

The Shanghai Composite fell for six consecutive sessions, shedding 5.4 per cent, before managing to inch up 0.1 per cent yesterday to 2,870.61.

Over the week, the index fell 3.8 per cent and it recorded a 7.7 per cent slide in April - its biggest monthly loss since January. It has fallen 12 per cent since the start of the year.

But traders noted that the poor performance of Shanghai was having less of an impact on other regional markets than at the start of the year. The FTSE Asia Pacific-ex Japan index has risen 1.2 per cent since January amid optimism that the recovery in the region was gathering pace.

"Domestic drivers continue to provide significant support for many Chinese and Asian companies, although tighter monetary policy in China is causing investors to reconsider the prospects for certain sectors," said Ronnie Petrie, head of Asia-Pacific equities at Standard Life Investments.

Mainland banks came under pressure for much of the week from concerns about potentially dilutive fundraising plans. But the sector rallied yesterday following news of bumper quarterly profits at several major lenders.

China Construction Bank climbed 1 per cent to Rmb5.25 and its Hong Kong-listed shares jumped 4.2 per cent to HK$6.43, leaving them 1.7 per cent up over the week.

Other mainland banks had similar rallies in Hong Kong, helping the Hang Seng index snap a three-day losing streak and finish 1.5 per cent higher at 21,108.59. Over the week, the index shed 0.6 per cent and it also slipped in April as a whole after two months of gains.

Worries about the escalating eurozone debt crisis weighed on clothing manufacturer Esprit , which has heavy exposure to Europe. Although the stock rallied yesterday, it still ended the week 5.3 per cent lower at HK$56.75.

Tokyo had a brighter time of it, although activity was subdued by a holiday on Thursday and the onset of Golden Week holidays next week.

The Nikkei 225 Average rose 1.2 per cent yesterday to 11,057.40, leaving it 1.3 per cent higher over the week - its first weekly advance in four - as corporate earnings provided positive surprises. It fell 0.3 per cent over the month.

However, Honda Motor fell 2.1 per cent yesterday to Y3,215 after it forecast a smaller than expected 10 per cent rise in operating profits for the full year. The stock was unchanged over the week.

Mumbai rose for the third successive month, with the BSE Sensex edging up 0.2 per cent. Australian stocks fell 1.4 per cent in April.

The Nine Chinese Men Who Control the Fate of America
By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

Nine politicians in China control the fate of the United States of America.

I'm not kidding. The implications are scary. Let me explain...

These nine men are the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. They control the value of China's currency.

The story is remarkably simple...

In China, the goal of these nine politicians is to keep the Communist Party in power. The way to accomplish that goal is for the masses to stay employed. Right now, China keeps the people working by exporting cheap goods. In order to make sure those Chinese goods stay cheap, the Standing Committee sets the currency exchange rate artificially low. And that is the crucial part of the story...

How do these nine politicians keep the exchange rate low? They buy U.S. dollars. Importantly, these nine men don't just sit on stacks of dollar bills... They invest those dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds.

It's gotten out of hand. China owns nearly $1 trillion worth of U.S. debt. China's holdings have increased dramatically every year... They've grown nearly tenfold since the end of 2000:

China* Treasury Bond Holdings
2000 $99 billion
2001 $127 billion
2002 $166 billion
2003 $209 billion
2004 $267 billion
2005 $350 billion
2006 $451 billion
2007 $529 billion
2008 $804 billion
2009 $941 billion
*includes Hong Kong

And China's soon-to-be trillion dollars of U.S. government debt is not the end of the story. It's the beginning...

In order for other Asian countries to compete with China, they have to artificially keep their own exchange rates low. And that's exactly what they're doing. They're doing it the same way China does... They're buying mountains of U.S. Treasury bonds, too.

At this point, foreigners now own half of the U.S. Treasuries outstanding (of the ones that are not held by the U.S. government). And they're buying more... Most importantly, there's enough demand for U.S. debt from foreigners that the U.S. government can finance its deficits for years to come... all by simply selling Treasury bonds to foreigners.

Would you lend money to the U.S. government at 3.5% interest for 10 years? I sure wouldn't. I really can't name anyone who thinks 3.5% in government bonds is a good deal. The foreigners aren't buying to earn 3.5% interest. They're buying to keep the value of their currencies down.

India is an interesting example... Earlier this year, when India spent $6.7 billion buying gold from the IMF, it was all over the news. What WASN'T reported was that India bought far more U.S. Treasury bonds than gold. India has increased its stake in Treasuries by over $22 billion since last summer – increasing its Treasury bond holdings more than 200%.

So, yes, there's a mountain of demand for U.S. dollars – Treasury bonds – from all over the developing world. The important thing is demand will last. It will last as long as the nine men on China's Standing Committee don't change their minds.

So what does all this mean?

It means the U.S. dollar will not crash right now.

A Major Uptrend Is Just Getting Started in This Hated Asset
The Euro Is Going on Sale

Most investors believe the U.S. dollar is about to crash. But the facts are clear... The dollar has ready buyers of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Treasuries. While the dollar might lose ground against gold, the reality is, no other paper currency has a tailwind of hundreds of billions of dollars of buying waiting in the wings like the U.S. dollar does.

Eventually, the dollar bears will be right. The U.S. will have to face all its debt one day.

The Obama administration has been rushing to make all sorts of government information available to the public through data.gov ever since the President came to office. Asian governments have not been doing so too. But not with quite the same fervour. Political, legislative and governance differences aside, could there be cultural resistance to setting government information free in Asia?

A Singaporean government official, who wanted to remain nameless, told FutureGov that Singapore is conservative not only in its approach to releasing government information, but “in how we classify documents. Unless those mindsets change, the data won’t be made easily available.”

There is cultural resistance to exposing data, he said. “Agencies may have errors in their data and they are worried that exposing the data may open them to embarrassment.” The same was probably true in the US, he suggested, but agencies have been pushed to make data available because of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires government information to be made available on request.

Earlier this month, Singapore launched the US$1.8 million OneMap initiative, which gives citizens and businesses free access to the island’s geospatial data through the portal onemap.sg. But OneMap does not go as far data.gov in making new and more kinds of data freely available to the public, says Harish Pillay, Open Souce Evangelist at Red Hat Asia Pacific.

“What data.gov does is put new raw data out,” he said. “What OneMap is doing is create a site using government data that competes with what’s already out there, such as Google Maps.”

However, Pillay said that to compare the US with Asia on open data is not helpful. “It presupposes a whole slew of prerequisites; that data can be made available, and that the various government agencies and departments can and will co-operate.”

“Even with the US system, there is no guarantee that all data will be available, he said. “They [the US] are ahead of the pack, because the President they now have sees value in data when it is made publically available.”

Governments are in a transitional stage right now with data, Pillay added. “They each have to come to terms with the value of transparency of data and let the population be the determinant of how that data is used. It is not easy for governments to see if there is ROI. But it is a conversation we all have to have so as to make the business of governing and being governed that much more accountable.”

Not everyone is convinced by what open data can deliver for government, nor by data.gov. “When the US started out, they carefully selected the data sources. Much of it was useful stuff that people could mashup to create interesting new things,” said the Singapore official. “But many US agencies have now been dumping data without any curation or good cataloguing. There are thousands of data sets, but finding anything useful is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I’m not sure how government can reap the benefits of open data,” he said. “It seems to provide a foundation by which private entreprise can think of new stuff to do with the data that is more compelling. Some libraries in the world are now talking about creating data libraries so that this type of data is properly managed.”

The way forward seems to be towards more open data for most developed countries. In his opening address at the FutureGov Forum Hong Kong, the territory’s Government Chief Information Officer Jeremy Godfrey said that open data would be a strategic priority for his department this year.

“Historically, government has charged for its data. But should we?” mused Godfrey. “No one should have a monopoly on data. We think there will need to be a change in policy because when we should, and when we should not, charge for information is becoming increasingly complicated. OGCIO will be launching pilot projects this year to determine policy on open government data. “We are heading towards a more liberal policy approach,” he said.

In China, there is a push by the government to become more transparent, improve citizen services and boost public credibility, Meng Xianghao, Deputy Division Chief, Ningbo Municipal Information Industry Bureau told FutureGov. “But open government data is still very much in its infancy in China, and the release of information is restricted to carefully selected policy reports,” he said. “How to meet the demands of the masses as much as possible without divulging sensitive content is a big challenge.”

http://www.futuregov.net/articles/2010/apr/27/cultural-resistance-open-govt-data-asia/

US National Security Adviser General James Jones:

Jews Are Greedy Merchants

As the National Security Adviser, General James Jones is not known as a friend of the Jewish State. It was Jones who put together the team of Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski to meet with the President and advise him to impose a solution on Israel.

Earlier this week we may have gotten some insight into why Jones is not a fan of the Jewish Homeland. He was giving the key note speech at a Washington Institute For Near East Policy and started it out with a "Joke" that borders on anti-Semitic, teaching the crowd that Jews are just greedy merchants in the same vein as Shakespeare's Shylock:

I'd like to begin with a story that I think is true, a Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban, the jokes goes on, begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”

According to the Jewish Forward

After the speech, two participants suggested, in private conversations with the Forward, that Jones’ joke might have been inappropriate. After all, making jokes about greedy Jewish merchants can be seen at times as insensitive.

A prominent think-tank source who attended the event said the joke was “wrong in so many levels” and that it “demonstrated a lack of sensitivity.” The source also asked: “Can you imagine him telling a black joke at an event of African Americans?”
Was the Joke Anti-Semitic? Well, the White House must have thought so. The White House transcript sent to reporters after the event conveniently began a couple of minutes into the speech. The video of the event posted on the Washington Institute Web site started right after the Joke, you can even hear the end of the laughter.

At the very least it was an idiotic time and place to make the joke. Many of the attendees of The Washington Institute dinner were in fact Jewish. And the Jewish community is very nervous about the recent anti-Israel leanings of the Obama administration.

Its interesting that the same President that sees racism in the legitimate actions of the Cambridge Police and the State of Arizona, hides the possible anti-Semitic prose of its National Security Adviser.

UPDATE: I found the video but couldn't download it. I contacted my friends at Breitbart and thanks to the Scott Baker at Breitbart TV, I was able to get my hands on the video of Jones' "comic delivery "

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/04/national-security-adviser-jones-jews.html

Labels: Jews, United States of America, US, USA

Temasek

Temasek ('Sea Town' in Javanese, spelt Tumasik; Simplified Chinese: 淡马锡) was the name of an early city on the site of modern Singapore. From the 14th century, the island is also known as Singapura, which is derived from Sanskrit and means "Lion City". Legend has it that the name was given by Sang Nila Utama when he visited the island in 1299 and saw an unknown creature which he probably mistook as a lion [1].

While the early history of Singapore is obscured by myth and legend, some conclusions can be drawn from archaeological evidence and from written references by travelers. Archaeology points to an urbanised settlement on the site by the fourteenth century. Allusions by travelers give some evidence that there may have been a city or town present as early as the second century. At its height, the city boasted a large earthen city wall and moat; many of the buildings were built with stone and brick foundations. Remains of old pottery, coins, jewellery and other artifacts have been found, with many of these artifacts believed to be imported from various parts of China, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. These are sometimes seen as evidence of the city's status as a regional trade centre. An aquatic route part of the larger Silk route, passes through Temasek.

From the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, the island of Singapore was controlled by the Srivijaya empire based in Sumatra. By the emergence of Temasek as a fortified city and trading centre 14th century, the Srivijaya empire was in a long period of decline. The city then changed hands several times before coming under the influence of the Sultanate of Malacca in the fifteenth century. After the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese in 1511, the island came under the control of the Malay Sultanate of Johor.

By the arrival of the British Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1819, there was only a fishing village on the site. Thus the modern city of Singapore, while on the same spot as Temasek, is not truly the same city.