I am been trying
not to link this with PAP but since you
people....
How about
thay have no
qualms losing a hundred
billion to foreigners but no money to treat the mentally ill
properly?
As said, this is a global crisis, nobody wanted it to be this
way, I quote you, my dear Uncle, a BBC interview by Mr Head
with our PM, your best friend.
PM Lee: I think it's the most severe since the
war.
We've had ups and down before, but this one is not only much
sharper and deeper but, I think, qualitatively different because
it's a worldwide problem... It's not just a cyclical recession but
a financial crisis of the whole global financial system.
Mr Head: Your government has taken a number of
unprecedented measures, a huge $20 billion stimulus package,
dipping into your reserves for the first time... Are these measures
enough, you think, to compensate for the impact of this crisis?
PM Lee: They will help us to reduce
unemployment, reduce job losses... they will help companies to
remain viable.
But we must understand that what we can do is to buffer the
impact. You must wait for the storm to pass.
Mr Head: Do you think this region has been too
complacent about its dependence on Western markets in the past?
PM Lee: We've had no choice. I mean, the whole
world is plugged in as one globalised world. Consumption, the
markets are in America. India and China have been growing rapidly
and their markets have been growing rapidly.
But on the world scale, they are still very small, and maybe
one-third, one-tenth of the American and European markets put
together.
Mr Head: But has there been a failure to focus
on developing domestic markets in the Asia-Pacific region, among
your neighbours...?
PM Lee: I think big domestic markets, if you're
looking at it, will be China and India. The way to develop the
markets will be to raise their standards of living, then they have
the money to consume.
Mr Head: Looking here at Singapore, what can I
understand from you about the huge paper losses that have been made
in the two big sovereign wealth funds here, in Temasek and GIC,
because on paper, they've done very badly over the last year.
PM Lee: Well, the value of the portfolios have
gone down... 20, 25 per cent... everyone has taken a hit, whether
you are Harvard, Yale, Stanford or the Norwegians.
If you're in the markets, you have to ride the ups and
downs.
Mr Head: Your own family has been quite
involved in these funds. Your wife, until recently, ran Temask.
Your father's deeply involved in GIC.
Is there a risk that when the news is bad, as it has been over
the past year for these funds, that people will tend to blame your
family rather than look at the institutions?
PM Lee: I think the way you put it is not the
way things work in Singapore.
Minister Mentor is chairman of GIC not because he's my father...
it's because he's the best man for the job and he has been chairman
since he was prime minister.
And Ho Ching is CEO of Temasek not because she's my wife but
because the chairman of Temasek, who is Mr Dhanabalan, and the
board decided that they wanted to appoint her as CEO.
And they are there as long as they are effective, performing,
and if they don't perform well, they have to take up
consequences.
Mr Head: I think you are talking about
perception, and perception is important in politics.
In difficult times like this, do you think that, in retrospect,
it might have been better for your family just to have a lower
profile?
PM Lee: (Laughs) Life would be much easier for
me if the Minister Mentor is not my father and Ho Ching is not my
wife.
But they are there... this is the way Singapore has worked. I
think Singaporeans have understood that this is how the system
works, and they will render judgment when elections come.
