Happy Chinese New Year! on NAPI and RAPI

Happy Chinese New Year, 新年快乐!

And here's something new yearish I thought of while counting my ang pow money(which says a lot about my marital status) which is econs related. Firstly, the concept of INFLATION... how much can your ang pow money buy you this compared to your previous years? My guess is that for most people(esp lower income groups), your ang pow is most likely lesser relative to the amount of things you can buy with the money.

Which brings me to the next stroke of brilliance(well, as if), maybe the dept of economics statistics of Singapore can use ang pow $$$ a supplementary indicator to WAGE RISES and WAGE RISES with respect to INFLATION. I mean well the govt papers have been publishing good news about how the Singapore economy is growing, that wage increases have outpaced the CPI(Consumer price index, basically Singapore's inflation indicator for consumbers), leading to the conclusion that Singaporeans of all levels are doing well... which my empirical observations with angpow money this year seems to disagree.

My ang pow money this year per ang pow has generally either shrinked in nominal terms(like instead of mostly $6 dollars, now there's an increase in the $4 ones) or stayed stagnant. As for increases...... ermm... what increases? So for my family there's a fall in the "Nominal Ang Pow Index"... haha lets name it "NAPI"

Factoring in price inflation of what the money can buy, the situation looks even worse... as everybody knows the price of everything has been increasing, so the same amount of money can buy lesser than the year before, so my "Real Ang Pow Index"(RAPI) has a even greater fall than NAPI. Oh my.... this doesn't sound good for my family and relatives...... and me of course!

So my friends... how has your RAPI and NAPI moved?
Enjoy your new year!

A plea; from a medic with regards to medical (board)

Having heard many accounts and stories of medical centres and medical boards( due to friends who unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately suffer from medical conditions and needed to downgrade/fail recourse FFI etc), here's one from the other perspective from some medic at the medical centre handling medical boards.

Ever wondered why medical boards take so long to be arranged? Read about it here

How MNCs minimise taxation

Ever wonder why a lot of large companies are incorporated in obscure countries like Canary Island, Bermudas, etc, when their main offices/markets/production sites are far away in every other corner of the world?

The answer lies in taxation....

Came across this interesting example of how Microsoft minimises their tax on profits, and in this case its Ireland.

"Round Island One Ltd., has a thin roster of employees but controls more than $16 billion in Microsoft assets. Virtually unknown in Ireland, on paper it has quickly become one of the country's biggest companies, with gross profits of nearly $9 billion in 2004.

Ireland's citizens may not have heard of Round Island One, but they benefit greatly from its presence. Last year the unit handed the government of this small country of four million citizens more than $300 million in taxes ... Microsoft routes the license sales through Ireland and Round Island pays a total of just under $17 million in taxes to about 20 other governments that represent more than 300 million people.

(This is not my comment, but the comment from the blog I am quoting from)But Microsoft does some real stuff in Ireland, so at least you can drive by one of their facilities and see the buzz of activity at Round Island? Errr.. No:

Round Island's legal address is in the headquarters of a Dublin law firm, Matheson Ormsby Prentice, that advertises its expertise in helping multinational companies use Ireland to shelter income from taxes. It represents other U.S. technology companies including Google Inc., which recently set up an Irish operations center that the firm credits in its SEC filings with reducing its tax rate. A Google spokesman said the company set up in Ireland to be close to its European customers. "Because that business is done outside of the U.S. it is taxed according to international law," he said. "

You better watch out

You better watch out

You better watch out
You better not try
You better not flout
I’m telling you why
ICA is checking you now
(sung to the tune of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’)

Well if you are wondering where this 'song' comes from, the source is none other than ICA(Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, SINGAPORE) mentioned in the lyrics. Now who says all civil servants must be strait-laced, no nonsense. Kudos to the person/team writing the press releases, it makes the press releases a much more captivating read while sending the message too. The press release continues below:

Yes, Christmas may be over and the malls stopped playing Christmas songs, but would-be smugglers have better take heed of the new ICA ditty. Two smugglers would probably remember this song for a long time, as they found out that ICA officers at the checkpoints remain vigilant during the peak festive season as well. At Woodlands checkpoint on 28 Dec 05, ICA foiled an attempt to bring in 450 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes and another attempt to smuggle controlled drugs into Singapore.

You can read the whole press release here, and the index of press releases here.
Just to name a few other interesting headlines: "Something buldging at the front of part of his trousers", "I know what you did last December".

Low Cost Terminal Naming Contest

The judges for this contest must have been through such a tough decision making process in awarding the $2000 and 3G mobile phone...

Singapore's first low-cost terminal named and ready for take-off in March

SINGAPORE'S first budget terminal has been named — what else? — the Budget Terminal.

Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong presented the winner of the "Low Cost Terminal Naming Contest" — 15-year-old Jonathan Sng of St Andrew's Secondary School — with a StarHub-sponsored cash prize of $2,000 and a 3G mobile phone, during a site inspection of the completed airport yesterday.

While 44 of the 12,000 or so entries had suggested "Budget Terminal", it was Jonathan's justification for the name — "short, easy to remember and representative of what the terminal is" — that clinched him the award, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).

Other suggestions submitted during the three-month contest period included "Funport", "Seabreeze Terminal", "Oasis Terminal" and "Orchid Air Terminal".

Naming the no-frills airport was a no-brainer for Jonathan, who told Today he thought of it over a few minutes during recess.

Read the rest of the article from TODAY here (It's real!)

PC in oil, anyone?

Here's an interesting DIY that the guys over at Tom's Hardware did, a DIY fanless oil cooled system! (Click on the pic to go to the article) Now that's a lot of deep fried chips(lame)!

On deposit accounts

In my previous post I blogged about the amazingly "high" interest rates of POSB savings account, and in this post I shall blog about the alternatives.

Here's a site that I found: Ask Dr Money; and it compares the various deposit accounts out there in the Singapore market, weighing their pros and cons, ranking them.

I will list a few of the outstanding/interesting ones here....

• Your standard savings account(POSB/DBS): 0.25% p.a. credited annually
• Standard Chartered e$aver/e$saver kids: 1.88% p.a. 2.45% p.a. for deposit above $50,000, no lock in period, no fees, no minimum balance. $5 surcharge for counter withdrawals
• Maybank Isavvy: 2.88%, 1 yr lock in $25,000 minimum
• Fundsupermart: 2.45% (The rate is actually calculated daily from the Singapore interbank lending rate minus 0.5%, minus 0.25% annual management fees, as it is actually a fund buying portal, so this will be the first to receive high interest rates if the interbank rates move up) This one is interesting
  
• Most of the banks' fixed deposits are at around 2.8% but this is for large sums like minimum 20k- 50k
  

In my opinion, for a poor guy like me, the Standard Chartered e$aver is the way to go, since it has much higher rates than even fixed deposits for small sums), its flexible with no conditions attached, the internet banking only facility is of no trouble to me. Now that there's the kids e$aver even those below 21 can have an account, provided you have a parent with you.

The bottom line, do not let your $$ rot in your POSB saving accounts, stash those savings somewhere else and leave enough for your normal usage and to maintain the minimum balance needed before the surcharge kicks in. Your $$$ can't even catch up with inflation with a measly 0.25%

POSB pays interest rate of 4+%!!

Just checked my POSB(now DBS) saving accounts and to my surprise, there's a new entry for interest of $4.47. Given my balance over the new year of a bit below $100.00 its a whooping 4+% p.a.
DBS is so kind to poor people like me to give me such high rates(I have heard rumours that they paid only 0.125% or 0.25% p.a.)

Standard Chartered's 1.88% p.a. and Maybank's 2+% no frills e saving accounts stand aside!

In case you think I am that naive, I do know why I got my apparent 4+%. Its just a simple exercise in statistics manipulation...
I have included a brief explanation for this phenomenon in the comments.