Wall Street crisis...world crisis

This morning (SG) I skyped with my family. Apparently AUD is weaker than SGD now. In Singapore, it's a spanking 1=0.98. Which is REALLY something, considering the fact that just a few months ago it was as high as 1.32=1!

But yes. The world market is crashin' and it's going to take pretty long to recover. USA's taken the hit and went down, alongside Europe, Japan and recently, Singapore.

So yes. Singapore is now in recession. Inflation is peaking and stocks fell by 7.3%. Like, BOOM!





ECONOMISTS have painted a grim picture of the economic outlook here, warning that Singapore will not be unscathed by the financial carnage sweeping rapidly across the United States and Europe.

'This downturn will be unlike previous downturns,' CIMB-GK economist Song Seng Wun told about 100 senior and middle-management staff of small businesses on Thursday at a business outlook seminar organised by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).

'The private consumption slowdown in the US and Eurozone may have a significant knock-on impact on the rest of the world.'

Mr Song believes the expected sharp fall in global trade and financial flows could lead to Singapore's worst economic performance ever.

He predicted that in the worst-case scenario, Singapore's economic output could shrink between 3 per cent and 5 per cent next year from this year.

OCBC Bank economist Selena Ling was less pessimistic but maintained that the Government was likely to downgrade its official economic growth forecast of 4 per cent to 5 per cent for this year.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry releases its advance economic growth estimates for the third quarter today.

'What we're seeing now is that Asia is at an inflection point. Growth is slowing down,' said Ms Ling, citing broad-based weakness in the manufacturing sector, weakness in electronics and lacklustre performances in the biomedical and pharmaceuticals segments.

In his speech on Thursday, Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, urged small businesses not to stop venturing abroad despite the economic slowdown.

'These challenging economic times also provide new opportunities for Singapore companies to venture overseas to seek opportunities in emerging markets such as Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and Vietnam,' Mr Lee said.




And of course. USA is in denial. D-oh!



MADRID - IT APPEARS increasingly likely that the US economy will enter into a recession, European Union Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Thursday.

The risk of a recession in the world's largest economy exists and should 'become our central scenario', the former Spanish employment minister said at an economic conference in Madrid.

The International Monetary Fund predicted in its latest World Economic Outlook on Wednesday that economic growth in the US will screech to a virtual halt in 2009, increasing by just 0.1 per cent.

That would be its worst showing since 1991, when the country was pulling out of a recession.
The IMF said the country was 'at the centre of the financial storm' and its economy was 'slowing down rapidly'.

Many economists believe the US economy will probably contract in the final three months of this year and the first three months of next year, meeting a classic definition of a recession. -- AFP
(http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_287775.html)



And well, there's really just a lot of other articles up at straitstimes.com, so go check it out. I'm sure newspapers back home have better and more detailed coverage over these issues. I'm not one to be so informed, but hey, this is huge.

Anyway! Today was hot and sunny and just like the spring i know :D
The connect group was supposed to hang out at Bondi but only 5 of us managed to make it. Which kinda meant that the sandwiches we made last night were obviously too much. We made THREE loafs of bread! THREE! And in Australia, they don't sell small loafs of bread. It's the huge ones we buy for camps! Hahaha but yeah all in all, today was good. Ashleigh and Mo (from germany) joined us later for like nearly 20 minutes and then the sun set and everyone left. But hey it was cool :D

Alrighty now. Ts wants to use the computer.

Oh and we had an 'indoor' picnic dinner while watching Love Actually! Will post pictures soon! Ciao!