Ass Loon Justify $258B LOSS, Refuse To Clarify Function on Temasick/GeeAyeC! Bugger!

[makapaaa]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=452 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Published March 2, 2009

</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>PM: Look at GIC's overall performance

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BEING invested means riding the ups and the downs of the market, the Prime Minister reiterated, when asked to comment on the Government of Singapore Investment Corp's move to cut its losses and convert its Citigroup preference shares to common stock.

'If you are like Temasek and you are owning SingTel and SIA and DBS and Keppel and SembCorp - all of these shares have gone down; the Singapore stock market has gone down by half. If you just add up the losses on these shares alone, you're talking about S$30 billion or some very considerable sum, so what is the government to do ?

=> Divert attention away from the BIG LOSSES on the mindless punting again.

'Do you want us to sell off SIA because next year the price is going down, or SingTel? Do you want us to short these companies? Or short the Singapore market because you think the Singapore market is going to go down?
'You can't . . . these are long-terms assets. We are looking for long-term value, and we have to keep a long-term perspective.'
And that means taking the ups and the downs, and looking at the overall portfolio, he emphasised.
'And overall, we have performed well. In a bad year, like last year, this year, we probably will see shrinkage. But you have to take a long-term perspective because if you jump up and down and you want to break even or make money every quarter, I think you will not be able to have a sensible policy or a sensible outcome.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>'You will end up not protecting your value, and it will be like buying gold which will do nothing, or putting your money in a safe deposit box, which also will do nothing, and we cannot do that.'
Rather than assess just the Citigroup investment, one must look at GIC's entire portfolio and overall performance, he said.
'Overall, over 20 years, it has done well and I think in this market, there is no fund which has done well,' he said. 'I mean, you look at all of the university endowments in America - down 20, 25 (per cent); Harvard is about 30 per cent (down). It is inevitable. If you are invested, you have to accept the ups and the downs.'

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[makapaaa]

Re: Ass Loon Justify $258B LOSS, Refuse To Clarify Function on Temasick/GeeAyeC! Bugg

>>>'You will end up not protecting your value, and it will be like buying gold which will do nothing, <<<

Sure buy gold did nothing? Losing $258B = Doing Something? Ah, from the same piece of shit that claimed GDP = Profit = Highest Ministerial Salary in the World cum automatic pension cum 55!

 

[makapaaa]

Re: Ass Loon Justify $258B LOSS, Refuse To Clarify Function on Temasick/GeeAyeC! Bugg

 

[The_Latest_H]

Re: Ass Loon Justify $258B LOSS, Refuse To Clarify Function on Temasick/GeeAyeC! Bugg

LHL's response is a weak one, one which isn't surprising to hear one bit. The fact is that taxpayers money, and CPF funds, shouldn't be used by SWFs for their expensive adventures overseas.

And at a time of such a crisis, and with such misjudgment, the insistence that we are investing long term- when its clearly for short term political gain- is not just misleading, but also downright false.

I continue to oppose such adventures overseas. And as for LHL saying about whether we should sell off SIA just because of this-and-that, getting into hypothetical questions of "what if" and "when what" is something professional politicians don't suggest in the public. No-one is getting so far ahead of himself or herself yet and yet he's suggesting that.

Maybe he's just being nervous, or deliberately trying to scare people. In any case, its just a re-run of the same old typical government line about "long term assets and investments." Citibank and UBS looks more like financial liabilities to me though, both from an accounting and economical point of view- simply because both aren't performing at all, and are not likely to get better.

 

[makapaaa]

Re: Ass Loon Justify $258B LOSS, Refuse To Clarify Function on Temasick/GeeAyeC! Bugg

Just Compare Ass Loon's ARROGANCE with Buffett's HUMILITY!


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=452 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Published March 2, 2009

</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Buffett accepts blame for Berkshire's worst year
He also blasts decisions of CEOs, regulators that led to credit crisis

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(NEW YORK) The renowned investor Warren E Buffett was uncharacteristically critical of himself and the business world at large in his annual letter to shareholders of his holding company on Saturday, as he sifted through the wreckage of his worst year in four decades.

<TABLE class=picBoxL cellSpacing=2 width=100 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD></TR><TR class=caption><TD>Mr Buffett: Blissfully ignored were the perils of relying on mathematical models devised without worst-case situations in mind. 'Beware of geeks bearing formulas,' he says </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Mr Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, reported a 62 per cent drop in net income for 2008 and posted a decline in book value per share for only the second time since he took control in 1965. Shares of the company, which peaked in late 2007 at more than US$148,000 apiece, closed on Friday at US$78,600.
With characteristic candour, Mr Buffett, 78, took the blame for some of the declines, stating that he 'did some dumb things,' lamenting in particular an ill-timed bet on oil and the purchase of shares in two Irish banks, which have fared poorly. But he also needled regulators and an assortment of unidentified chief executives as he predicted that fallout from the credit crisis would leave the stock market a shambles through 2009.
The letter, as ever, gives shareholders an overview of Berkshire's annual performance, but it also doubles as a folksy state-of-the-economy address from one of the country's most revered investors.
In language that was by turns blunt and witty, he decried what he called 'a series of life-threatening problems within many of the world's great financial institutions.' An inveterate optimist about the American economy, Mr Buffett also forecast an eventual recovery, asserting that the country has faced even more severe economic travails in the past. 'Without fail,' he noted, 'we've overcome them.' Despite its record losses, Berkshire Hathaway still has about US$25 billion cash on hand and has been buying preferred shares of General Electric and Goldman Sachs, as well as the debt of companies like Harley-Davidson and Tiffany & Co. Mr Buffett is shopping for bargains while the share prices of most companies are sliding - his own portfolio included.
Shares of many of his top 20 holdings suffered losses last year, among them Coca-Cola, American Express and ConocoPhillips.
Since the beginning of the recession, Mr Buffett has taken on a part-time and unofficial role as the US economy's eminence grise. He also served on President Obama's transition team. In his letter, though, he lambasted the decisions and habits that led to the credit crisis.
Reviewing the performance of Clayton Homes, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary that sells manufactured homes, he noted that its lending arm had managed to keep foreclosure rates to less than 4 per cent, even among subprime borrowers, or those with weak credit ratings. He contrasted that relative success with the failures of just about everyone else in that business. 'The stupefying losses in mortgage-related securities came in large part because of flawed, history-based models used by salesmen, rating agencies and investors,' he wrote.
He went on: 'These parties looked at loss experience over periods when home prices rose only moderately and speculation in houses was negligible. They then made this experience a yardstick for evaluating future losses. They blissfully ignored the fact that house prices had recently skyrocketed, loan practices had deteriorated and many buyers had opted for houses they couldn't afford.'

=> Mabroky: Buffett talk cock!

Also blissfully ignored, he wrote, were the perils of relying on mathematical models devised without worst-case situations in mind. Too often, he wrote, Americans have been enamoured of 'a nerdy-sounding priesthood, using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like.' Some scepticism about these models is overdue, he added. 'Our advice: Beware of geeks bearing formulas.'
Mr Buffett was just as scathing on the subject of derivatives, which he had likened to weapons of mass destruction long before they started eviscerating the balance sheets of banks around the world.
In his letter, Mr Buffett explained that the danger of derivatives was not merely the difficulty in assessing their value; rather, it was the 'web of mutual dependence' they create among financial institutions.
Derivatives contracts keep various parties entangled for years, which, as he vividly explained, can create real hazards once those assets start deteriorating.
'Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease,' he wrote. 'It's not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.'
Still, Mr Buffett's report was greeted with sighs of relief among some shareholders. 'I'm delighted,' said Janet Tavokoli, a derivatives expert and author of 'Dear Mr Buffett,' about the credit crisis of 2008. 'Of course it was a tough year - the toughest year of his life. But I was concerned about the impact in operating earnings and I was prepared for much worse.' - NYT
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