News reports you will NEVER find in
PAP government controlled state media:
Morgan Stanley's Xie Quit After Singapore
E-Mail
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Andy Xie's resignation as Morgan Stanley's
chief economist in Asia last week followed an e-mail in which he
characterized Singapore as an economic failure dependent on illicit
money from Indonesia and China.
Xie, who worked at Morgan Stanley for nine years, sent the
e-mail to his colleagues after attending the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank annual meetings last month in the Southeast
Asian island state. The 46-year-old Shanghai-born economist
questioned why Singapore was chosen to
host the conference, and said delegates ``were competing with each
other to praise Singapore as the success story of
globalization.''
``Actually, Singapore's success came
mostly from being the money laundering center for corrupt
Indonesian businessmen and government
officials,'' Xie, who was based in Hong Kong
before leaving Morgan Stanley on Sept. 29, wrote in the e-mail.
``Indonesia has no money. So
Singapore isn't doing well.''
Singapore's $118 billion economy is recovering from three
recessions since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and is expecting
growth of as much as 7.5 percent this year. The city- state is
grappling with growing competition from China and India, two of the
world's most populous nations, where labor costs are less than a
quarter of those in Singapore.
Mountain Summit
Officials from the public-relations departments of the Monetary
Authority of Singapore and the government's information service
declined to comment on the contents of the e-mail. They also
declined to be identified.
Xie declined to comment on his departure when contacted on his
mobile phone on Oct. 2 and said he hasn't decided what he will do
next.
``I'm not at liberty to
comment on anything,'' said Xie, who holds a
doctorate in economics and a master's degree in civil engineering
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. ``I'm in Guangzhou and I'm taking a break on top of
a mountain. It's quite nice here.''
Xie, who said in September that the U.S. economy may fall into a
recession in 2008, worked at the corporate-finance division at
Macquarie Bank in Singapore before joining Morgan Stanley in 1997.
He earlier spent five years as an economist with the World Bank,
overseeing the bank's programs in Indonesia and other countries in
the Asia-Pacific region, according to the New York-based firm's Web
site.
`Corruption Money'
The Singapore government, which is ending a four-decade ban on
casinos, plans to triple tourism revenue to $19 billion and double
visitors to 17 million by 2015.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in September that
Singapore's economy may sustain annual growth of 3 percent to 5
percent for the next 10 years to 15 years as the country expands
industries ranging from information technology to tourism.
``To sustain its economy,
Singapore is building casinos to attract corruption money from
China,'' said Xie, who ranked No. 2 among
regional economists in a 2003 Asiamoney magazine survey.
Morgan Stanley confirmed the contents of the e-mail and said the
New York-based firm doesn't elaborate on the reasons behind
employee departures.
``This is an internal e-mail based on personal suppositions and
aimed at stimulating internal debate amongst a small group of
intended recipients,'' said Cheung Po-ling, a Hong Kong-based
spokeswoman for the world's largest securities firm by market
value, in a written statement. ``The e-mail expresses the views of
one individual and does not in any way represent the views of the
firm.
``Morgan Stanley has been a
very strong supporter of Singapore and has a great deal of respect
for Singapore's achievements,'' Cheung
said.
Morgan Stanley Deals
In the U.S., Wall Street analysts have lost their jobs for
recommending shares of companies that they privately disparaged.
Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and eight rival securities
firms agreed in 2003 to pay $1.4 billion to settle charges that
analysts published misleading stock research in a bid to win
investment-banking business.
Morgan Stanley ranks sixth among merger advisers in Singapore
this year, handling $1.5 billion of deals, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. It advised Temasek Holdings Pte., the
Singapore government's investment company, in the purchase of a 9.9
percent stake in Mumbai-based Tata Teleservices Ltd. Morgan
Stanley, the No. 3 arranger of stock sales in Asia outside Japan,
hasn't underwritten a Singapore deal this year, Bloomberg data
show.
`Strange Choice'
``I tried to find out why
Singapore was chosen to host the conference,'' Xie wrote in the
e-mail. ``Nobody knew. Some said that probably no one else wanted
it. Some guessed that Singapore did a good selling job. I 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 be a lot more appropriate.''
At a dinner party hosted by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong, ``people fawned him like a
prince,'' Xie wrote. ``These Western people didn't know what they
were talking about,'' he wrote, describing the praise for Singapore
as ``nauseating pleasantries.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aK7UIXigIxjM
Strange that a supposedly high ranking economist would single
out Singapore as a money laundering centre.
Is money laundering only happening in Singapore alone, out of
the numerous countries that made up the world?
Utter stupidity too, for one so highly lauded economist, to
charge that Singapore and its success story, based on the hardwork
of our forefathers, you and I, gets its revenue from corrupt
indonesians and govt officials.
So other nations are pure and clean, for example, the swiss
banks, european markets, and the rich american financial centres as
well?
Are we a communist police state, that determines who gets
to bank in Singapore, or a democratic state with an open economy
that welcomes anyone whom wishes to park their money here, so long
as they had not been charged or declared fugitives by their own
country?
Is Singapore the ONLY country in the world building casinos? And
the chinese will only flock to our country to gamble?
So USA (251 casinos), Europe (29 casinos), Africa ( 7 casinos),
Asia (7 casinos), are innocent, not attracting tourists or ban
tourists, with only their citizens allowed
t playing 5cts tikam tikam inside?
And he is ranked a no 2 economist in the region? Who were the
guys in the AsiaMoney rag that ranked him? Village idiots?
Questions, questions, that will remain unanswered.
C'mon, fessed up! Who amongst us citizens had offended this
petty little china guy while he was in Singapore? Or was it DBS
bank whom rejected his job application so he had an axe to grind,
and Singapore, being only a small red dot, is good to bully?
