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Abstracts of essays; news; announcements; short takes.
About Me
- Yawning Bread Sampler
- This blog carries summary abstracts of Yawning Bread essays, with space for comments.
Here too are other tidbits that are too short for the main Yawning Bread site.
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2008
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October
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- Bus commuters caught in terminology jam
- From Alexandra Hospital to Washington: The currenc...
- Fatwas, sermons and religious meddling
- A troika of news from an economic tailspin
- Cantonese Sydney
- Three walks in Sydney
- Academic freedom and the Rascals Prize
- With recession coming, what social safety nets hav...
- J B Jeyaretnam: The iconography begins
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October
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Posts
10 comments:
my comments on your three items:
1. casino: I think it is highly likely that a local company, most probably a Temasek company, will take over or at least become a partner in the project, which is funded largely by loans from the three local banks with a relatively small equity stake from the US company; it could therefore be bought over with a small financial transfer; compared with the company's Las Vegas and Macao projects, losing the singapore project has less impact on its overall scheme
US$: China was a big buyer of US government bonds and other financial papers, and the fall of the US$ alone would have cost it dearly, without considering the crash of the CDOs and share prices; however, the fault was not one sided; a lot of the financial instruments were produced in response to the need to recycle the trade surpluses built up by China and other countries with respect to US; the buyers could have diversified, e.g., Singapore government bonds would have been much less risky, but the financial guys in China were mesmerized by the image of US power and put all their eggs into the basket
Gay marriage: it is not the tradition, and tradition is important not just culturally, but also legally: most legal decisions here are based on common law, or legal precedents set by previous court decisions; while changing the law by legislation might be procedurally simple, politically it is not simple, as you know only too well
I thought you readers might be interested in a recent BBC program about US$ as a world reserved currency. Here is the url: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/7685876.stm
On the issue of Vietnamese brides, one should ask the question: what kind of Spore men goes retail shopping for brides? I am second guessing that these men have been mollycoddled by their mummies for far too long way into their adult life. Perhaps mummy also plays a part in pushing them to shop for a bride.
"it is not the tradition, and tradition is important not just culturally, but also legally: most legal decisions here are based on common law, or legal precedents set by previous court decisions; while changing the law by legislation might be procedurally simple, politically it is not simple, as you know only too well"
I understand you are not in any way espousing the mindset of the following type of people, but I'm really getting tired of people saying "it's difficult" and taking it as an excuse to shake legs and pretend the matter doesn't happen. It's a tired, belaboured point but honestly people really, really need to think about the double standards their "tradition" holds. I find it a bit ironic (?) how the most self-described "tradition-breakers" I know are dyed-in-the-wool American pentecostal-style Christians... from one blindness to another. Sorry, I vented a bit there. Empty words because I don't know what I can do to make people actually think about this.
On the issue of Vietnamese brides, one should ask the question: what kind of Spore men goes retail shopping for brides? I am second guessing that these men have been mollycoddled by their mummies for far too long way into their adult life. Perhaps mummy also plays a part in pushing them to shop for a bride.
Likewise the same question can be directed at the kind of local women going for Caucasian men, suffering from Pinkerton syndrome and dressing up in certain sarong types and so .
Let us not get into any unnecessary gender bashing here.
Anon 10:34,
Are you serious??? Having a preference for Caucasian guys is soooo different than putting yourself up for sale to ANY Singaporean man willing to pay a bit of money. These Vietnamese women are desparate with families in extreme poverty. The same cannot be said for Singaporean women who like Caucasians. Your analogy is wayyyyy off.
quote YB:It's long been a mystery to me how one thing can both be a measure and store of value and be a speculative commodity at the same time.
IMHO, the USD was initially backed by a huge reserve of gold. They had systematically hoarded gold for the better half of the last century. When even that started to fail, the Americans turned to oil, and started to hoard oil as reserves. Backed by these, the USD became a measure of some value...alas, when even gold and oil are opened to speculations, what can one expect of the tonnes of paper notes that the US Treasury prints?
>what kind of Spore men goes retail shopping for brides?
simple - those who have not found brides in other ways
>I am second guessing that these men have been mollycoddled by their mummies
since you want to second guess about these men, another anonymous wants to second guess about SPGs; my second guess is both of you got your pet peeves, and the two need not been comparable in nature
As one might expect, the singapore govt would of course not allow failure to occur over such a high-profile, emotionally-charged pet project.
>>> Las Vegas Sands Shares Soar After Singapore Deals Itself In <<<
http://www.moneymorning.com/2008/10/30/las-vegas-sands-corp/
Other related updates can be found on Reuters. So there.
AP
Thursday November 6, 11:55 am ET
By Michelle Chapman, AP Business Writer
Las Vegas Sands in jeopardy of missing some financial covenant requirements
NEW YORK (AP) -- Casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. said Thursday that it is in jeopardy of missing certain financial covenant requirements and needs to raise more capital.
Shares of Las Vegas Sands plunged $4.70, or 40.3 percent, to $6.96 in midday trading. Over the past year, the stock has traded between $4.32 and $122.96.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Las Vegas Sands said it expects to miss certain borrower obligations for the fourth quarter which ends on Dec. 31, and potentially afterward. If that happens, lenders would be able to demand their money sooner.
The defaults would "raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern," the filing stated.
A going-concern qualification refers to a company's ability to continue to operate indefinitely.
Las Vegas Sands was in a similar covenant predicament in the third quarter, but managed to escape default after Chairman and Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, loaned the company $475 million through a 6.5 percent convertible note due in 2013.
....
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