The Singapore F1 Grand Prix - Putting us on the World Map

Today saw the highly successful completion of the first ever night race on the Formula One circuit, the Singapore Grand Prix. This was definitely a historic and momentous event that will be remembered by all, but there are actually deeper underlying implications of this event.

I believe that the event being held in Singapore marks the beginning of an era where Singapore has redefined itself as a global tourism hub. With the emergence of Dubai and Macau as new "super-powers" in the tourism industry, Singapore has also now seemingly communicated its masterplan to become their South-East Asian counterpart. The successful and highly exciting F1 night race event, which coupled with the upcoming casinos and integrated resort, looks set to propel Singapore as a choice tourist destination for the affluent globetrotters due to its central location within Asia. This has been helped by the accessibility to transport links, multi-racial and multi-lingual nature of our country.

What remains to be seen though is how our country develops to accomodate the negative externalities that will come with being such a prestigious tourist hub. Can Singapore also then communicate to the skeptics within our own population that there are substantial positive externalities that might be reaped?

The Fall of Lehman Brothers

Image taken from www.boston.com

Many economists have been lamenting about the fate of Lehman Brothers since the first sign of the economic downturn in the first half of the year. After a long drawn back and forth saga, its spokesperson today announced that Lehman Brothers is set to file for bankruptcy in order to protect the value of its remaining assets. Other victims of the crisis include investment banks Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, each of these being bought out by Bank of America and J.P. Morgan respectively.

We only now begin to appreciate the full extent and impact of the subprime crisis on the economy, with three former banking powerhouses disappearing from the street in the span of a year. Nothing like this has ever been witnessed in history and that goes to say alot about the damage effected by the subprime mortgage fiasco.

It all came about when banks and other mortgage brokers decided to securitize mortgage loans with poor credit ratings (high risk of default) and sell these structured investment products to individual and institutional clients. The structural problems inherent within the US banking system were then exposed as these re-packaged products were given ratings of AAA (high investment grade) by rating agencies such as Moody's or Fitch. Therefore, how they could substantiate such ratings will always remain a mystery for most of us, up till now, when we realise that the fees paid to these rating agencies were from the people responsible for coming up with these investment products themselves.

We also notice that the widespread dissemination of these products to investors all over the world has led to another huge problem of tracking the extent of losses. This has led to continuous speculation that there are further losses and write-downs to be witnessed, and this consequently caused a lack of investor sentiment throughout the globe.

I believe we have yet to see the final act of this spectacular fall-out from the subprime crisis and there will be further casualties in the pipeline (AIG?, Wachovia?, Washington Mutual?). The Federal Reserve will stop bailing out institutions who are poor capital positions for political as well as, economic reasons and hence we will indeed see more blood being shed on the streets.

In such a state of economic emergency, i think we should continue to save more money and invest it in relatively safe asset classes such as 1-yr governement bonds etc to protect our capital and earn slightly above interest rates. This will ensure we still manage to grow our wealth, as little as it may seem, slowly but steadily.

So what are your views on the latest world economy?

Sources: Channel News Asia, 15th September 2008
BBC News UK, 15th September 2008
Bloomberg.com, 15th September 2008

Local Movie Review - Leap Years (3.5/5.0)

I've actually always wanted to watch "The Leap Years" ever since it came out in the theaters on 29th February 2008. However, I didn't managed to catch the screenings because..
1) I was working.
2) I wanted to watch it with my boyfriend (who was then still studying in London)

And so, when my COM101 project mates were brainstorming on a movie for our project, I took the opportunity given and suggested this particular movie for us to analyse and critic.



Despite not being chosen to present our findings on "The Leap Years", it is definitely one of the best locally produced films I've ever watched and have thus decided to mention it here. The entire story is based on a Catherine Lim (famous local author) story. And I find it interesting that the producers had cleverly injected a confluence of cultural and social concepts to emphasize and define an abstract concept such as love (as perceived by the female protoganist--and later on, by the audience).

An illustration of this point was when the local custom of Chinese fortune-telling was used at the start of the movies as the preferred method to convey Eastern idea of love and match-making. This was later met with quotes about love and affection from Western philosophers and writers such as Shakespeare. Therefore, this East meets West concept about the show really impressed me as it truly captured the integration of the many different cultures and social norms within the Singaporean society, thus showcasing our uniquely varied "identity".

Will Hurricane Gustav blow down barriers to humanitarian aid?

Hurricanes in New Orleans, earthquakes in Shenzhen, forest fires in Sumatra.


Looking at images of the 2 million people scurrying for their lives as hurricane Gustav approaches is not a pretty sight. They have been urged to leave their material belongings and just take whatever is necessary for survival. We in singapore, are safe from these natural disasters, and have an adbundance of tangible or material goods throughout of entire lifetime. We should however never take this sense of security for granted. Instead, we should also move out of our comfort zone voluntarily just as these people have been contrived to, and lend a helping hand wherever it may be needed. Be it donating clothes, food or its monetary equivalents, there needs to be a requisitely swift response to help our brothers and sisters in need.

A better world can only be reached through reaching out.

Source: Business Times, 1st September 2008