Western spectacles - look who's seeing

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Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Singapore Democrats

For a government as myopic as this one, PM Lee Hsien Loong should be the last to give anyone advice on the kind of spectacles to wear (see report below).

The two organisations that handle the nation's reserves -- one run by his father, the other his wife -- were so short-sighted in their investments in Western banks that we have lost more than $100 billion to-date.

The Minister Mentor and Madam Ho have yet to explain what led them to take the decisions to inject our funds into ailing and corrupt financial institutions.

Did these banks invite us to invest in them like what Citigroup did to the GIC? Who signed the cheques? What due diligence did the GIC and Temasek perform?

Most crucially, whose glasses were Temasek and GIC wearing then?

Now when things go ka-boom! the Prime Minister calls on us not to see matters through Western glasses. Good grief.

Mr Lee says the media "should just present the facts". Okay.

GIC invested US$6.9 billion in Citigroup. Stocks in the bank plunged so much that there is much talk that it might be nationalised.
GIC invested US$10 billion into UBS who stocks plummeted to historic lows today. The Swiss bank has admitted to defrauding the US Government in helping tax cheats and will pay hefty fines.
Temasek invested US$5 billion in Merrill Lynch saying that it had "great confidence" in Merril. The bank went bust and its leaders are now the subject of investigations by US authorities.
Temasek invested $4.5 billion in Barclays. That same year the bank announced a write-down of almost that amount.

The picture through any lens -- Western or Asia -- looks astonishingly negligent. But what Mr Lee really meant was not Asian spectacles, but rather the ones put in front of us by the Singapore Press Holdings.

If it were indeed Asian glasses (think Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) that we are supposed to be looking through, Mr Lee and company would have had to apologise to the people for the financial debacle and there would be calls for the leadership to step down.

At the very least parliamentary opposition would be asking tough questions and calling the Government to account and to take responsibility.

But with SPH glasses, the vision would continue to be blur and we will still be unable to see what is coming up ahead.

Singaporean PM asks news media not to wear western spectacles
Xinhua
23 Feb 09

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said there is a need for news media to present objective reports and not to wear "western spectacles", local media reported on Monday.

In an interview with TV broadcaster Channelnewsasia, which is to celebrate its tenth anniversary on-air, Lee said the challenge that news media is facing is to be able to boil down information and present news neutrally out of Singapore.

"We felt there was scope for perspective from Asian eyes. Not to put over an ideology or a doctrine, but just present the facts, less the western spectacles," Lee said.

Lee also told the broadcaster that the government is building up capabilities to engage and leverage on the new media at the next General Election in 2012, but he added there is still a place for traditional media to be the trusted information source.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/23/content_10879233.htm

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Comments (8)

Wed 25 Feb 2009 5:59 AM | greyheyn

Junior Lee is much less politically savvy than his dad. A politically weakling by any standard.

Wed 25 Feb 2009 8:22 AM | jeffgoh

Lets face it. Without the western spectacles, singaporeans may have never come to know about their hard life savings that were poured into these investments....may have never come to know about the losses and the very serious degree of losses at that. When the investments were made, first made known to us by "western spectacles".(thank God for western spectacles)...billions were quoted. after last friday 20/2/2009...we cannot use the world billions with regard to these investments...we have to talk interms of hundreds of millions...and it is highly probably we may even have to soon drop the "hundreds" in reference to these investments....lets hope not., but rest assured we can always rely on those western spectacles to keep us informed of the real world.

All these years I have always been enlightened and keep abreast of the real world using the western spectacles. Through the media corp or sph spectacles...I get confused...from things like..."price of crude dont influence cost of transport"...motorcycles use more space on the roads than cars...I cannot get my cpf because I will go to Batam and have a second family..when we invest..we invest or take a 20 year view .talking about investments like this in an era of very much shortened product life cycles reflects a kind of thinking that is out of touch...

Keep yr sph spectacles..keep yr media corp spectacles..dont take away my western spectacles..its one for the few things that i HAVE LEFT TO KNOW THE REAL WORLD.

Wed 25 Feb 2009 8:45 AM | exSINgaPOORean - Asian Spectacles..he must be joking!

"If it were indeed Asian glasses (think Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) that we are supposed to be looking through.."

If they use Japanese glasses, both the old fox and the prostitute will have comitted suicide long ago!

The next thing sissy Lee will be using excuses like:

"Let's not wear western underwears to talk".

"Don't use the English language.."

"Don't use wester toilets"

If sissy Loong and old fox and the prostitute and the rest of the running dogs and balls carriers keep on using excuses like "long term", "we have diversified portfolio", "we have a prudent approach"..all these bull shits then they are missing the main point.

It is about "TIMING"!

What the hell, with all the warnings from George Soros, Warren Buffet and the World Financial seminars before collapse of the banks and yet the GIC and TemaSICK still pout in these billions of dollars.

Can't they invest NOW!

Wed 25 Feb 2009 6:48 PM | maxchew - LKY and his son and lackeys fooling people....

They can fool some of the people some of the time,
They can fool all of the people some of the time,
They can fool some of the people(66.6%) all of the time,
But they CAN't fool all of the people all of the time!

Day of reckoning is coming soon.....
Be afraid, be very afraid, all you PAP bum-suckers!

Wed 25 Feb 2009 11:45 PM | G_Chen - What a joke

What indeed are "Western spectacles"?? I can wear any kind of "spectacle" and as long as the lenses precription are right, whether they are from India, Japan, UK, or US, I would still be able to see equally well with them. Therefore, to create such an analogy to represent a different ideology or perspective just does not make sense at all and in fact sounds silly. Also, to listen to our government talks about "presenting news neutrally" or commenting on another country's human rights matter, is like having an aquaphobic non-swimmer coaching swimming...simply unreliable and hypocritical.

Wed 25 Feb 2009 11:57 PM | Dick

Pink Menace can cut the crap on "Western Spectacles" Human rights are universal, only despotic state try to justify themselves by creating their own unique version to cover up their tracks.

Dirty Harry betrayed Singapore to the Imperial Army of Japan in WW2.

He is still doing it now, only different form.

Thu 26 Feb 2009 3:14 AM | Mavericano - Happenings

We all have seen these issues happening years ago.. even when i was in my teens i could see the problem with our so called ministers, I mean these issues are not relatively new as there were similiar cases long ago.. but what i am sadden by is that Singaporeans.. well most Singaporeans are too much in a comfort zone to be actually facing and questioning the issues directly to "them". even if some people do.. they don't really wait for a solution.. yes like what maxchew said some day our time will come but till that day.. too many people are just too comfortable in their own pigeon wholes.. many can say "WE ARE DEMOCRATS" but in reality many fear the opposition.. its a known fact. the root of the problem in our society is that people want change but are too scared to leave their "comfort zone"....

-
Live free... Die alone..

Thu 26 Feb 2009 4:00 AM | Henry Windgates

Let's face it, thanks to Western spectacles and also opposition parties' spectacles, we all know the ugly truth about the PAP government investing all of our hard-earned money on banks which are going to go bust sooner or later, like the aforementioned Merill Lynch for example.

And now, the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wants us to see through the version of his "Asian spectacles" (the state-controlled media SPH and MediaCorp). Ha, he's kidding right?