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Dear GMS
It is a dog eat dog world, and Singapore has refined it to a fine art. Vis sa vis our GDP size, do u know how much Singapore contributes to a) world bank b ) asia development bank, c) Who and d) all manner of international organizations ? We give loans to the IMF because it is in our national interest, we give pittances to all other manner of international organizations because it is not in our national interest.
The fundamental question is even for market economist, do we accept some degree of moral hazard in return for greater and tighter regulation. Does the IMF create Moral Harzard ? We have to remember that if a country was not in shit, it would not have turned to the IMF to begin with. No healthy functioning government and or economy turns to the IMF. The IMF may be a loanshark but countries turn to the IMF after they have defaulted on debts to the private sector and have no other funding. The internal adjustment by the IMF is always painful but the alternative a lot lot worse.
Our national interest is a healthy stable functioning global market economy with free trade and capital flows. Dams and Development, health etc etc be dammed :_))
Locke
It is a dog eat dog world, and Singapore has refined it to a fine art. Vis sa vis our GDP size, do u know how much Singapore contributes to a) world bank b ) asia development bank, c) Who and d) all manner of international organizations ? We give loans to the IMF because it is in our national interest, we give pittances to all other manner of international organizations because it is not in our national interest.
The fundamental question is even for market economist, do we accept some degree of moral hazard in return for greater and tighter regulation. Does the IMF create Moral Harzard ? We have to remember that if a country was not in shit, it would not have turned to the IMF to begin with. No healthy functioning government and or economy turns to the IMF. The IMF may be a loanshark but countries turn to the IMF after they have defaulted on debts to the private sector and have no other funding. The internal adjustment by the IMF is always painful but the alternative a lot lot worse.
Our national interest is a healthy stable functioning global market economy with free trade and capital flows. Dams and Development, health etc etc be dammed :_))
Locke
Locke,
I have to borrow a word from the old man, Highfalutin ideals but Singapore is just a tiny red dot. We are in no way going to have the ability as well as resources to provide that kind of international leadership required to save the world.
It is a dog eats dog world out there and the first principle applied is self-preservation for his own country. At the very best, we are just a tiny little side dish for such display of "superman action", not even an icing of the big cake.
If we are as big as US or China, yes, I would fully support of such actions and contributions because, at the end of the day, ironically, it still boils down to politics which you so detest in getting into the way. You got to face the harsh reality, whether to join the game or not, all boil down to politics, not some Highfalutin ideals of saviour, unity or world stability.
As a small country, we are always stingy in giving out aids to other countries... sometimes, just half a million for some disaster effort for our neighbours. Sometimes, even less than a couple of hundred thousands. I wish we could do more on that rather than making a loan commitment to IMF with exceptional high per capital impact on Singaporeans (about S$1500 to $1600 per Singaporean, alot of char kuey tiao to start with!) vs others (China works out to be just less than S$40 per PRCs!). If we are going to be just a small icing on this big show, I guess even $1B is too much for us to bear.
Saving the world is one thing but it will create another problem: Moral Hazards. Just like AIG and banks, after being saved, they just give their own management a big bonus for the job well done in getting monies from the govt.
Goh Meng Seng
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