Testing out a new VPN service - USA IP
A while ago, at the height of one of the recent local political storm, several popular websites were mysteriously attacked. The conspiracy-minded among the blogging community was on fire. This led me to seriously think about online ID protection.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Singapore Q4 2010 GDP revised down
The local media had a field day praising Singapore's economic achievement in 2010 compared to 2009. It should, because the opportunities could be running out, and the political calendar is pressing closer. But a little detail stood out and I had to dig further to reconcile why 2010 GDP was not the 14.7% first reported just 4 weeks ago was now 14.5%. I found the answer, as usual, not from the encouraging local media, but from Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo Finance (link below).
It turned out that the local media left out the little bit of "bad news" of a surprisingly shocking downward revision to the advance forecast provided in January 2011 for Q4 2010 growth, first reported at 6.9% quarter on quarter annualized, to 3.9%. And yes, before the apologists react to point out that the January figure was based on only 2 months' data, this is still shocking by Singapore's recent standards: this simultaneous "miss" of nearly 50%, by both the official statistics folks and the "independent" and obliging "analysts forecast" polled by MAS as well, is almost unheard of. Maybe it is the year-end bonus time, and some previously uttered magical figure was needed to push through the bonus approval paper. Or maybe the faltering emerging markets just needed a boost, who knows.
The link here:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/Singapore-Q4-GDP-growth-rsg-105162775.html?x=0
It turned out that the local media left out the little bit of "bad news" of a surprisingly shocking downward revision to the advance forecast provided in January 2011 for Q4 2010 growth, first reported at 6.9% quarter on quarter annualized, to 3.9%. And yes, before the apologists react to point out that the January figure was based on only 2 months' data, this is still shocking by Singapore's recent standards: this simultaneous "miss" of nearly 50%, by both the official statistics folks and the "independent" and obliging "analysts forecast" polled by MAS as well, is almost unheard of. Maybe it is the year-end bonus time, and some previously uttered magical figure was needed to push through the bonus approval paper. Or maybe the faltering emerging markets just needed a boost, who knows.
The link here:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/Singapore-Q4-GDP-growth-rsg-105162775.html?x=0
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