| Aussie Bank | M'sian Bank | ||||
| Tenure | ANZ | C'wealth | NAB | HSBC | PBB |
| 3 or 4 * month | 5.40% | 5.40%* | 5.40%* | 3.95% | 4.65% |
| 6 month | 6.00% | 5.80% | 4.00% | 4.20% | 4.85% |
| 12 month | 6.00% | 6.00% | 6.00% | 4.35% | 5.30% |
Another news from The Star today,
"PUTRAJAYA: The Cabinet has directed the Chief Secretary to the Government to investigate alleged racist remarks made by a National Civics Bureau (BTN) assistant director, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said.
Dr Subramaniam said the Cabinet has expressed disappointment over the alleged remarks by BTN assistant director Hamim Husin at a meeting on Monday.
He said the Cabinet wanted a full investigation into the matter..."
My comment? haha, save it !
Khalid said the water concessionaire in Selangor, Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas) cannot raise the water tariff although such a hike was agreed upon by the Federal government.
"Syabas must get the Selangor government's approval before raising the water tariff. But I want to reiterate that Selangor will not allow a hike in tariff before the restructure process is completed..."
While I applaud the noble intention of MB for taking care of welfare of people in Selangor state, we all know that everything has a price, yes water carries a price, as a matter of fact a high price as it is going to become such a precious thing in near future based on the scale of forest clearing, pollution, dessertification etc.
This is further to the news report I quoted about Standard Chartered Bank earlier.
If you still have doubts about the world becoming flatter, look no further...
Standard Chartered PLC (STAN.LN) is pressing ahead with contingency plans to relocate abroad and avoid the increasing burden of regulations and taxes in Britain, U.K. newspaper The Times reports on Friday.
The board has discussed the issue in depth at several meetings and has a team working on the feasibility of a move to the Far East or elsewhere, The Times said, without citing specific sources.
A departure by Standard Chartered, which carries out almost all its business in emerging markets but is listed in London and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, would be a blow to the U.K. Government, The Times said. It has been ready to bash bankers but has no wish to drive them out, The Times said.
Standard Chartered, whose chief executive, Peter Sands, was one of the architects of the 2008 financial bailout, is one of the few financial institutions that survived the crisis without taking taxpayers' money, The Times said. Sands has enjoyed a close relationship with ministers, the newspaper said.
The bank's relocation could mark the start of an exodus that might include HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC, 0005.HK) and Barclays PLC (BCS, BARC.LN), The Times said.
The chief executives of all three banks have warned publicly that they might relocate if Britain adopts policies that are out of line with other countries', The Times said. Their main concern is that the Banking Commission under John Vickers will call for a split of investment and retail banks, The Times said.
Newspaper Web site: http://thetimes.co.uk
HONG KONG — What a contrast! After three years living in Asia, I returned to the United States a couple of months ago, with enormous respect for how Asia has pulled itself together after its own devastating crisis in the late 1990s. Now I was back.
Bouncing back and forth only deepened my conviction that an important shift in the gravity of global economic power from the West to the East could well be at hand.
It’s not just the Asian miracle that reinforces my belief in such a possibility. America has lost its way. In the years I was away, it has become a very different place. The despair of chronically high joblessness is sapping the nation’s sense of self and poisoning the political debate.
Back in mid-2007, when I moved to Hong Kong, the U.S. unemployment rate stood at just 4.6 percent. Today, it is more than double that at 9.6 percent. Nor is there much hope of a spontaneous resurgence of hiring that will temper the angst of this jobless recovery.
How could Asia get it so right, and the United States get it so wrong?
I suspect a good deal of the answer has to do with the arrogance of power. Long the dominant global power, America took its image for granted and its dominance as an entitlement. Asia, on the other hand, was far more humble. It learned painful lessons from a series of very tough experiences — the post-Cultural Revolution chaos of the Chinese economy, the post-bubble aftershocks of Japan, and the ravages of its own financial crisis in 1997-98.
But Asia also benefited from a deep appreciation of the limits of policy. Stability became the mantra of the region — especially social and economic stability. Asian policies — fiscal, monetary, currency and regulatory — are all focused on avoiding the types of disruptions that have wreaked such havoc on America.
Once that genie is out of the bottle, Asians are dubious of a policy fix. That is the lesson they take from Japan and now from the United States. It is a lesson that keeps Asian authorities committed to a preemptive approach in avoiding major threats to stability.
China is an obvious and important case in point. Hit hard by the collapse in global trade in late 2008 and early 2009, Chinese authorities implemented an aggressive proactive fiscal stimulus to counter the functional equivalent of a full-blown recession.
Yes, there were serious consequences of those actions that have also had to be addressed — namely, deteriorating loan quality of a bank-funded infrastructure stimulus and a liquidity driven bubble in high-end residential property markets. But Chinese authorities wasted little time in dealing with these aftershocks as well.
Significantly, China’s regulators have been quick to build firewalls between the real economy and distressed bank lending and asset markets. That stands in sharp contrast with the approaches in Japan and the United States, where asset and credit bubbles were condoned and allowed to infect the real side of their respective economies with devastating and lasting aftershocks.
Seared by the memories of its own painful experiences of the past 30 years, developing Asia does not trust counter-cyclical stabilization policies to put the post-bubble pieces of a crisis-torn economy back together again.
America, on the other hand, has yet to get it. The great debate over yet another stimulus is dominating pre-election posturing in Washington and Wall Street. Implicit in this debate is the presumption that the first stimulus — all $787 billion of it — was actually too small to jump-start a classic recovery. Up the ante, goes the argument, and the economy will finally heal.
Don’t bet on it. The lessons of Asia should give considerable pause for thought in accepting that premise on blind faith. As Japan’s experience suggests, post-bubble economies have an extremely tough time achieving policy traction. If Japan’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of 200 percent can’t pull its economy out of the quagmire, why should America be any different?
Just because the heavy artillery worked in arresting the Great Crisis, there’s no guarantee that another round of firepower will convert a weak post-crisis recovery into a strong one.
The United States needs to develop a greater appreciation for the Asian mindset of economic management and policy strategy. There is nothing wrong with focusing on financial and economic stability — and aiming the full force of regulatory, monetary and yes, even currency policy toward that end.
Rather than bashing China for using its currency as an anchor of financial stability, Washington needs to take a much deeper look in the mirror and come to grips with the perils of a savings-short U.S. economy that has lived beyond its means for close to 15 years.
The Asian way is far from perfect, especially its lack of support from internal consumption. But Asia offers a discipline and a focus on stability that is sorely lacking in post-crisis America.
The real lesson from Asia is that there is no quick fix for a post-bubble economy. Washington needs to crack the denial and stop blaming others for its own blunders. It needs a long-term strategy. Like Asia.
Stephen S. Roach, a member of the faculty at Yale University and non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of “The Next Asia.”