Compensation for Credit Linked Notes

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10 highest paid politicians in the world

Report.

Annual salaries in USD

1. Lee Hsien Loong - Singapore   Salary in dollars - $2.47 million
2. Donald Tsang Yum-Kuen - Hong Kong Salary in dollars - $516,000
3. Barack Obama - United States Salary in dollars - $400,000
4. Brian Cowen - Ireland Salary in dollars - $341,000
5. Nicolas Sarkozy - France Salary in dollars - $318,000
6. Angela Merkel - Germany Salary in dollars - $303,000
7. Gordon Brown - UK Salary in dollars - $279,000
8. Stephen Harper - Canada Salary in dollars - $246,000
9. Taro Aso - Japan Salary in dollars - $243,000
10. Kevin Rudd - Australia Salary in dollars - $229,000

Where to get financial advice

Here are some general tips, but written for the UK situation.

A sense of loss for a Singaporean

Hi Mr Tan,
I have been following with interest your blog on and off especially during the period of "minibonds". I respect your sense of social justice and your courage and willingness to fight for the underdogs.

I myself have always been neutral to politics. I only write today because on the spur of the moment, I want to pass a few observations about the passing away of the Singapore I grew up in.

I am in my 30s. When I am young, I felt that the government was willing to develop us Singaporeans. Life was simple, relations with people were sincere.

That Singapore is no more. In almost any job I have worked, foreigners equal Singaporeans in number, sometimes they exceed. Even when you interact with people, the locals don't care for and about the locals. Money is all everyone thinks about. Perhaps it is because we are all forced to struggle with the influx of so many FTs.

When we need employers to give us a chance, we find that the job has gone to some more experienced FT. But they were given chances, even sponsored to take courses, back in their own countries to hone the skills that they have today. 

All familial ties are no more; we have became disposable entities to our companies and our bosses. It is a very lope-sided system where the employer is king. Even some bosses, used to maids, treat employees in the same disposable manner. Forget about receiving any training, you are paid to serve them. Retrenchment and dismissal is sometimes the excuse of poor senior management. The same goes for the present government.

I am neither bitter nor resigned. I am just sad that I cannot identify this country with the one I knew and grew up in. You might tell me I am being sentimental, we must all adapt to the world, there is no free lunch. Yes I have heard that many times. And home-grown Singaporeans are largely a docile bunch willing to bend over backwards with the govt. But why does it seem that the govt makes our problems worse instead of better?

You are very capable man. By writing to you, I don't dare to aspire for anything. I have signed your petitions and I have written encouraging messages on your blog. I just want to share with you, Singaporean to Singaporean, the loss of the soul and essence of my country.

High charges give poor return

A participant at the CASE forum gave this statement. He said that he had invested in unit trusts for the past many years. Two years ago, on his retirement, he calculated the return on these unit trusts and found that it gave an average of about 3% annually. This is a poor return, considering the long period of investment. He has decided that to avoid all types of investments.

If he had invested for such a long period, his return should have been more than 6% annually. It is likely that his fund was badly managed, e.g. in speculative investments, or had high charges that are taken away from his return.

There is a segment of the fund management industry that behaved unethically. The fund manager takes away big fees, but were not able to achieve a good return to the investors.  The fees take away a large part of the return and gave a poor net return to the investor.

Many life insurance products also offer a poor return, of 3% annually or less. Considering that inflation must have been around this level, the poor return is just able to match inflation. For investors who took our their money earlier, the high front end fees led to a big loss of their savings.

Be careful of bad financial products. Many financial products fall in this category!

Proposal to solve the global economic crisis

We are facing a global economic and financial crisis. People are scared to spend. They want to save money, in case they lose their job and need the money to spend at that time. 

The reduction in consumption is causing the economy to slow down badly. Businesses are hurt. They are not able to get encough sales to pay their expenses. They have to close down and retrench their employees. This will lead to a downward spiral.

The collapse of the value of property and other assets cause people to feel poor. They also cut down their spendings. 

Actually, the people still own the same houses and assets. They now believe that these assets are worth little, when one year ago, they thought that the assets are worth two or three times more. 

All this is just a matter of the mind. It is also called confidence. If we can get people to believe that they are rich, that their assets are worth more than they can fetch today, we can revive the global economy. 

Read this proposal.

Tackling the credit crunch

Many small businesses find it difficult to get credit from the banks. Here is my proposed solution.