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As we enter the second month of the new year that holds so many promises, it looks more and more like a year of increasing discontents. First of all, nobody can promise me that the religious tension in Malaysia will not spread to Singapore. One must not forget that on kinship level, the people of the two countries are more connected than anyone care to admit. We cannot hope to be totally insulated from the troubles across the causeway. At this moment, we can do well to pray for common sense to prevail.
Next is China and the United States that are so far yet so close to us. The two giants can no longer see eye to eye. The Chinese is angry at US for wanting to sell weapons to Taiwan, Google is frustrated with China’s censorship of Internet contents, the US complains that the RMB is too low making US products more expensive, and the Chinese is worried that the massive printing of US dollars will dilute China’s reserves which are mostly held in US Treasury bills; and the gripes look more like escalating than subsiding.
On their respective home front, more problems are confronting the leadership. President Obama, a so-called ‘war time’ President has decided to end the war in Iraq but has waged a different sort of war with the Wall Street honchos to make sure they are cut down to correct sizes so that no financial institutions will be ‘too big to fail’.
On the other hand, the rumours about the Chinese central bank rising interest rates to curb asset inflation sent the stock markets the wrong way into another round of topsy turvey. And now investors all over the world are praying that the sell-out will stop soon.
Can real estate prices in Singapore be totally insulated from all the disquiets that are going on in the world right now and go on a separate flight path? The answers are in here.
I have opted to call this year’s tiger the CROUCHING TIGER because I believe that there would not be any movements forward until some of the larger issues are put aside.
In the meantime, the tiger lays WAITING.
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