Photo by Hythe Eye
Before I start out on summarizing some economic and business news, first of all I must state how thankful I am for the opening and commencement of the Circle Line, which has managed to cut short my travel time by about 40%. Even though I am not a shareholder of SMRT, I can still appreciate the social good which they are bringing to ordinary, working-class citizens such as myself. The time savings can be used for more research, which in turn translate to more money and also additional quality time with my family and friends. In time to come, I foresee that Singapore will become a very well-connected country via MRT lines which are in the midst of sprouting up like mushrooms, with the current Downtown Line being constructed followed by the Thomson Line. In 8-10 years time, there are more plans for an Eastern Region Line and also other lines which will probably make Singapore’s route map look like that of the London Tube!
The most mind-blowing business news in recent weeks was the civil suit brought against Goldman Sachs, and now Britain is also launching a probe into Goldman’s affairs to see if there was any fraud involved. This may, in turn, precipitate further actions against other “errant” Wall Street Banks which knowingly sold CDOs and CDS to an unwitting public and withheld important details about the counter-party. Of course, the banks took the brunt of the news with their share prices tumbling, as the SEC would probably go on a “witch-hunt” to root out more wrong-doing and to pin the blame of the financial crisis on one or more parties. On another note, Greece and Portugal’s debt was also downgraded by Standard and Poor’s, resulted in a major sell off as there were fears of another debt contagion infecting the economics of the Eurozone. Read more…
