Does Studying a Masters Help?

I have been wondering the past few days whether studying a masters would be useful in my career progression and open more doors to me. I currently only have a bachelor's degree and was thinking of doing a masters in one of the local university.

Of course, cost is one of the main factors that I choose to do it locally. Besides, I cannot afford to do it on a full-time basis and most probably will have to pursue it on a part time basis.

I was just wondering whether doing a masters in my related field of work will bring about a better career progression for me. Besides, I have also been wanting to do a masters for the longest time but I just don't know whether it is worthwhile to spend the time and money on something unless there are potential benefits. The other option will be to wait for a few more years, save up enough money and then go overseas to do my masters.

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

Poll Results: Which is the most toxic investment product

In a poll that I recently conducted on this blog, I asked the simple question to readers:

Which is the most toxic investment product?

All investments are subjective are their investors believe that they will rise in value and thus invest in them. Toxic investments or assets are simply things that lose their value such that there is no way to liquidate them for any money. Whether investment products are toxic........we can only tell based on hindsight I guess. On hindsight, we are now certain that subprime mortgages are toxic assets. But whether other investment products are toxic or not, we can only wait and see.

Poll Results - A total of 22 votes were cast

1. Land Banking (54%)

2. Insurance Products (18%)

3. Wine Investment (27%)

4. Shares (0%)

Analysis of Results

The poll showed that more than half felt that Land Banking was a toxic investment product. Wine Investment was next followed by insurance products. Nobody felt that shares is a toxic investment.

The reason why Land Banking got so many votes is perhaps due to the recent Straits Times article on it being unregulated. Mr Tan Kin Lian has also highlighted the pitfalls of investing in land banking on his blog. The low liquidity of this investment product coupled with the risk involved makes this a fairly risky product to a certain extent.

Interestingly, noone rated shares as toxic or risky even though there have been cases or debacles of shares becoming worthless overnight. Just think of China Print and Dye, etc. These shares just lost value overnight and became totally without value. Isn't that toxic?

Generate Income from Your Property

A few days ago, I wrote about HDB's Lease Buyback Scheme. I was just exploring the various options that might be available to people for generating income from their biggest asset: Their Homes or HDB flats.

I have been thinking about it for some days and I do feel that the Lease Buyback Scheme ought to be further improved if possible. For one, they should perhaps extend it to all Singaporeans to make it easier for older Singaporeans to liquidate the tail-end lease of their HDB flats. After all, not many people are ready for retirement in Singapore.

Renting Out

Another way that people can generate income from their property or HDB flat will be to rent out the entire flat or rent out certain rooms.

A person is allowed to rent out the entire flat after living in it for a certain number of years. (5 years if subsidised and 3 years if unsubsidised). Approval is required from HDB to rent out the flat. A higher property tax of 10% will be chargeable if you rent out your entire flat.

Alternatively, one can also rent out one or more rooms in your property or HDB flat with no change to the property tax payable.

Generating income from your property during your retirement years is fairly easy. However, one should realise that there are also certain risks and downsides involved:

1. Bad tenants (illegal immigrants, overstayers, people who don't pay rent, tenants who spoil your property).

2. Conflicts when living with tenants.

3. Lack of privacy.

What is Happening to Singapore?

I must be crazy. Or perhaps I am just short tempered lately. But what on earth is happening to Singapore?

In the past 1 to 2 years, I have been encountering more and more service staff who have no inkling of how to speak English at all!!! And they are supposed to be in the customer service line!!

The reason I am angry is because one would expect them to at least speak some basic English considering the job that they are doing. Afterall, there are people in Singapore who do not speak Chinese.

Some of these service staff also have an attitude to go with it. I remember once when I clearly saw a service staff who I know was from China at first glance. I spoke in Chinese and asked for one food item. She packed in two instead and I quickly corrected her to say that I only wanted one. She had the cheek to speak back to me and said that I actually said two!! Wah...fainted...

The last encounter was really amazing. I was asking for a high chair for my child at a supposedly Western restaurant. The service staff stared blankly at me and I repeated the request.

The woman actually said this in Chinese: " Ni jiang hua yu hao ma?" (Can you speak in Chinese please?) I have nothing against speaking in Chinese to service staff. But my thoughts go out to the non-Chinese speaking population. How do they cope?

I have even seen with my own eyes, a service staff trying to speak to a Malay in Chinese before. After the Malay ignored her, she even like rolled her eyes, most probably thinking to herself why the customer was ignoring her.

My oh my...What is happening to Singapore??????????? Is it just me?

Independent Financial Advisers?

I read in the Straits Times the letter to the forum by Larry Haverkamp titled : "Onus on insurers to boost transparency".

In it, he referred to another recent article which mentioned that financial advisers should not call themselves "independent" if an insurance company pays them a bonus for hitting sales targets. Mr Haverkamp goes on to suggest that dropping the term "independent" is a good idea but might not be a big deal as advisers will still continue to push the products that pay them the most.

MAS actually has guidelines on whether a financial adviser is "independent". And at times, it can be pretty grey as certain product providers do provide incentives that might make them bias in favour of a particular investment product.

Haverkamp is also correct to point out that playing with the word "independent" is actually just a small step forward. The ideal reform would be to empower consumers and let them make decisions based on a complete knowledge of the various products namely:

1. DIY method (Buy Term Invest the Rest)

2. ILP

3. Endowment

4. Whole Life Plans

Toxic Investment Products

Hi People,

I am running a poll to find out what you feel or think is the most toxic investment product out there in the market.

The poll can be found on the right hand column of this site. It is right under the picture of the pretty lady and should be located near to the top of the blog. The poll is only on for 4 more days so do let me know what you think simply by voting. Just one click and I will know the answer.

I have listed 4 choices of:
1. Land banking
2. Insurance
3. Wine investments
4. Shares


This will give an idea of what people think about the various products. I will share the findings with all so do contribute your thoughts yah?

Cheers,
FF

Sing Dollar Rises with Record GDP Growth Forecast

With Singapore's GDP expected to grow at a record 13 to 15 percent in 2010, the Sing Dollar is also expected to rise to curb inflation. MAS has declared that it will maintain a modest and gradual appreciation stance for the currency at the next policy meeting.

I have always been quite interested in economics. Unfortunately, I have never been trained in this subject. The closest I got was to study Economics 101 in university and that was pretty much about supply and demand lines. We hardly talked about currency appreciation and inflation.

This is my version or laymen's language of what is going on:

1. Singapore's output in terms of products and services have been pretty high over the past 2 quarters. As such, the expected GDP figures are going to be between 13 to 15 percent. GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product and is basically a measure of the country's economic output. For the long term, a healthy GDP growth is around 3 to 5 percent.

2. When GDP rises, inflation is also expected to increase. This is because firms require more workers and start bidding against one another to attract workers so as to produce a higher output. This leads to an increase in the prices of goods and services and thus leads to inflation. When GDP grows rapidly, inflation is also expected to rise rapidly. Most economists try to keep a low steady inflation rate of 2 to 6 percent. That basically means that there will ALWAYS be inflation in Singapore as it is judged that low rate of inflation is good for the economy. So do take note that inflation is not some airy fairy thing that only takes place once in a blue moon. Most countries try to keep a positive inflation as they view that deflation is bad for the economy. In that sense, we can expect inflation to be always with us.

3. By appreciating the Singapore currency, inflation will be kept in check to the low rate. MAS is not trying to abolish inflation. Rather, it is trying to achieve the targeted inflation rate of 2 to 6 percent which is deemed healthy.

I am not an economist and I am also not from MAS. But I guess this is the linkage between GDP, inflation and currency appreciation. At least, this is the way I understand it to work =)