HAS OUR BARISAN GOVERNMENT GONE WILD?With bailouts, the budget deficit is exploding.!

SINGAPORE RECESSION LIKELY DEEPER THAN EXPECTED: GOVT (MySinchew) - Singapore's worst economic crisis since independence is even more severe than expected, with output now forecast to shrink by as much as 9.0 percent in 2009, official data showed Tuesday. The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by 6.0 to 9.0 percent this year, a stunning downgrade from the previous official estimate of a decline of 2.0 to 5.0 percent. "MTI's earlier forecast had factored in the likelihood of a weak first quarter, but the advance estimates indicate that actual GDP growth will undershoot earlier expectations by a significant margin," it said. Prior to this year, Singapore's worst performance since it became a republic in 1965 came in 2001, when the economy contracted 2.4 percent. The revised 2009 outlook was the fourth downgrade since November, a reflection of the severity of the recession confronting the trade-dependent island as electronics and other manufactured exports continued to plunge. However, Standard Chartered bank said projections that Singapore's economy may contract by more than 10 percent in 2009 "seem overly pessimistic to us." The country's influential founding father Lee Kuan Yew warned last month that the economy may shrink by 10 percent if exports continue to fall sharply. The revised outlook came as fresh data showed GDP shrank 11.5 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, far worse than the 4.2 percent decline recorded in the preceding quarter. The 11.5 percent fall is the worst ever for a single quarter since records began in 1976. Singapore's previous record quarterly contraction was in 2001 when GDP shrank 6.4 percent in the third quarter of that year. On a seasonally adjusted annualised basis, GDP declined 19.7 percent in the first quarter this year, also a record, compared with 16.4 percent in the previous quarter, the ministry said. The estimate is based on preliminary data computed mainly from the first two months of 2009 and a fuller picture is likely to emerge next month. Almost every sector of the Singapore economy was hit in the first quarter with manufacturing especially affected because of the fall-off in exports, the ministry said. Manufacturing shrank 29 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, pulled down sharply by declines in crucial exports of electronics, chemicals and biomedical products. "With most of Singapore's key trading partners still in recession, the manufacturing sector will continue to remain weak for the rest of the year," the ministry said. The revised GDP forecast was made after key exports, known as non-oil domestic exports (NODX), fell by an estimated 17 percent in March to S$11.88 billion (US$787 million) from a year ago. Singapore's trade promotion agency, International Enterprise Singapore, said the drop in March NODX was due to continued declines in shipments to its key markets especially the United States, the European Union and Japan. Shipments to the top 10 NODX markets fell in March with the only exceptions being China and Hong Kong, the trade promotion agency said. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the de facto central bank, announced Tuesday in a separate statement that it was adopting an easier policy stance, a move widely expected by analysts. The MAS said it lowered the trading band for the Singapore dollar, which essentially allows the local currency to depreciate. Singapore last eased its monetary policy in October 2008. Singapore conducts its monetary policy mainly via the Singapore dollar, rather than through interest rates, because of the economy's heavy dependence on trade. The currency is hovering around 1.50 to the US dollar. The crooks in Malaysia said Malaysia is protected. He meant his money is protected, Rosmah jaga. ALtantuya tried to steal, but fortunately, Rosmah ada. The Singaporeans cannot fault their government for telling the truth. It scares me to find out the actual situation about our economic situation. Go, try to get a loan from TEKUN or MARA, you know what the officers will tell you: "KERAJAAN TAK ADA DUIT. BUAT PINJAMAN DARI BANK."  Umno, jangan tipu rakyat. Kalau Kerajaan tak ada duit, kata tak ada duit.HEY DAIM IS BRINGING ALL THE MONEY DOMT WORRY Singapore's worst economic crisis since independence is even more severe than expected, with output now forecast to shrink by as much as 9.0 percent in 2009, official data showed Tuesday.  The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by 6.0 to 9.0 percent this year, a stunning downgrade from the previous official estimate of a decline of 2.0 to 5.0 percent.  WE ARE SO FORTUNATE TO HV SUCH CAPABLE FINANCE MINISTERS WHO ASSURED MALAYSIA WILL CONTINUE TO HV SURPLUS AND WE ARE CUSHIONED FROM THE GLOBAL CRISIS. SOME FIGURES JUST DONT ADD UP OR HV WE GOT NINCOMPOOPS MANAGING THE ECONOMY.

HAS OUR BARISAN GOVERNMENT GONE WILD

Money

Government Gone Wild

Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein, 03.31.09, 12:01 AM EST

With bailouts, the budget deficit is exploding.But this time around, the government wants to limit the charitable deductions and raise tax rates to make way for more spending. What government is really saying is that it doesn't like the competition from private charities. It wants more people to depend on government.

Back in February, the government said that its $787 billion stimulus bill would create 3.5 million new jobs. This was at the very highest end of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimate of 1.2 to 3.6 million new jobs.

But even this high-end estimate of U.S. job creation is penny ante, when compared to a leaked memo from Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. He proposed a $2 trillion European stimulus plan that was supposedly going to create 19 million jobs. In other words, Europe can create a new job with just $105,000 of government spending per job, while the U.S. needs $219,000.

But all of this is just a pipe dream. Government spending does not cause a net increase in jobs over the long run; it costs jobs. Every dollar the government spends is either taxed or borrowed from the private sector, which means it "crowds out" private sector job creation. And because government spending is less efficient than private sector spending, the economy actually grows more slowly in the long run as the government gets bigger.

What's interesting is how all these numbers are being bandied about with very little pushback from the press. In recent years, the press has complained loudly about $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. And almost everyone in the media suggested that budget deficits lifted interest rates and hurt the economy. But in recent weeks, the press seems to have forgotten its old argument.

The new massive government spending plans are especially frightening with the U.S. now facing $1 trillion deficits. President Obama says that this is all OK, and that he is cutting the deficit in half (to $533 billion using administration math, or $672 billion according to the CBO) in just four years. What he doesn't say, and what no one seems willing to say, is that without his new budget the deficit would have been cut by 75% in four years to about $250 billion. The budget deficit and the size of the government are exploding and no one seems to care.

But it doesn't end there. Americans are the most generous people on the face of the earth, when measured in dollars donated to charities. At the same time, private charity does a great deal of good and often does it more effectively than government. But now the government wants to limit deductions for charitable contributions.

Some conservatives have argued that this might be a good trade-off if marginal tax rates were lowered. They argue that the benefits of higher GDP (resulting from lower tax rates) would outweigh the losses from slimmer donations (as a share of income). That is an economic argument that reasonable people can disagree about

But this time around, the government wants to limit the charitable deductions and raise tax rates to make way for more spending. What government is really saying is that it doesn't like the competition from private charities. It wants more people to depend on government.