US woes: S'pore may be worst hit

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US woes: S'pore may be worst hit


Wed, Dec 03, 2008
The Straits Times

By Alvin Foo

SINGAPORE is likely to be the Asian economy that is worst affected by a United States recession, said economists. This is because it is one of the most open economies and has a large manufacturing sector.

They were commenting a day after the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - a private, non-profit research body - concluded that the US has been in recession since December last year.

Unusually, the NBER does not define a recession as two straight quarters of shrinking economic output. Instead, it looks for a decline in economic activity, spread across the economy, and lasting more than a few months. The figures it uses include overall economic output, industrial production, payroll employment, personal incomes, and wholesale and retail trade.

 

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Old-time electronics manufacturing and exporting- based on low wages of these manufacturing employees- are going the way of the dodo. If the PAP thinks it can hold these companies within Singapore, and not go to China and India, then they are wasting their time.

Plus, the slowing down of consumer buying and the loss of consumer confidence has led to less buying of products that Singapore is manufacturing. This makes it worse.

That's why we have to evolve our economical system. The old model doesn't work as much as we would like it anymore; its pointless to think we can continue. That's why its either we start manufacturing higher tech equipment like solar panels, or we start opening up our private sector, and allow small businesses to flourish and expand within and outside of this country.