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That
Andy Xie email
Singapore
Democrats
24 Jan 08
Mr Andy Xie, former chief
economist with Morgan Stanley, was reported to have written a
more than eyebrow-raising email about Singapore and its financial
system (Morgan
Stanley's Xie quits after critical email on Singapore) that
was sent to his colleagues Mr Xie was promptly sacked.
Below
is the much-talked about email that the SDP has received. We
cannot confirm its authenticity.
I participated in the
panels on Commodity (sic) and China-India and in some obligatory
dinner parties. On Friday night the Singapore prime minister
invited the speakers at the meeting that the Singapore government
organised. Trichet, Larry Summers, Paul Volker (sic) Chuck Price,
the finance ministers of ASEAN countries were there. No
government official from China was there …guess I was
there to make it look like China was represented.
The
dinner was turned into an Oprah with PM Lee Hsein Long (sic) at
the center. The topic was on the future of globalization. People
fawned him like a prince. Of course, he is. There are two
reigning princes in the world that the Davos crowd kiss up to,
Jordan and Singapore. The Davos crowd are Republican on economic
issues and democratic on social issues. Somehow they manage to
put aside their moral misgivings and kiss up to Lee Hsein Long
and Abdullah.
I tried to find out why Singapore was
chosen to host the conference. Nobody knew. Some thought it was a
strange choice because Singapore was so far from any action or
the hot topic of China and India. Mumbai or Shanghai would have
been a lot more appropriate. ASEAN has been a failure. Its GDP in
nominal dollar terms has not changed for 10 years. Singapore's
per capita income has not changed either at $25,000. China's GDP
in dollar terms has tripled during the same period.
I
thought the questioners were competing with each other to praise
Singapore as the success story of globalisation. Actually,
Singapore's success came mainly from being the money laundering
center for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government
officials. Indonesia has no money. So Singapore isn't doing well.
To sustain its economy, Singapore is building casinos to attract
corrupt money from China.
These western people didn't
know what they were talking about. Aside from the nauseating
pleasantries some useful information came out of it. Trichet
sounded very bullish on euro-zone economy (sic). He noted that
euro-zone was catching up with the US in growth rate (sic) and
talked about further gain in 2007. His tone was much more bullish
than our house view. As Japan is surprising on the downside, I
don't see how the rise of euro-yen could be stopped.
Larry
Summers and Paul Volker (sic) were very worried about the US
economy. As you probably know, Alan Greenspan is talking the same
way. At the CLSA conference last week, he talked like one of his
critics. There is fear of a US collapse. Many Americans think
that an RMB reval (sic) would save the US. This is just a dream,
in my view.
Most were worried about the future of
globalisation due to income inequality. As average workers in the
west are not seeing wage increase (sic), they may vote against
globalisation. I thought that they were understating the benefit
from cheap consumer goods. However, as inflation comes back, it
does diminish the benefits for western consumers.
No-one
was worried about the growth outlook for China and India. The
Indian Planning Minister was very bullish, talking about 9%
forever.
My sense is that policymakers are relexed (sic)
about the short-term economic outlook but anticipate a US
collapse at some point. Americans think that RMB reval could save
the US. So they would keep pressuring China."
Andy
Xie
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