Former UBS Executive Director Juerg Buergin must be one of those foreign talent Caucasians who measured up to Lee's stringent quality controls. The Swiss national, 41, married with two kids, stood out because, according to his underaged plaything, he paid up-front with cash inserted in hotel envelopes, and booked only expensive hotel rooms like those of Shangri-La and Mandarin Oriental. And oh, she had to use a certain quality of prophylactic. That's real talent at play here.
Actually we'll rather hear more from former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who was sharing the same stage as the spin master. His name is used for a specific section of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to restrict United States banks from making certain kinds of speculative investments that do not benefit their customers.
The Volcker Rule bans proprietary trading, risky securities bets that banks place for their own accounts, rather than for their clients. It's designed to ensure the government perks that banks enjoy (borrowing money at low rates from the Federal Reserve, guaranteeing their depositors against losses) do not subsidize risky speculation. We should have a variant of that to prevent our Town Councils from investing our money in toxic instruments.
On the other hand, quality control measures for financial institutions may not be apposite discourse for the gathering of Singapore bankers. Not when the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has started investigation of Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Taib Mamud over claims of corruption in the timber trade. Claims which surfaced from the Global Witness film "Inside Malaysia's Shadow State". Film which features quotes like ""Singapore has a China Wall... They will not tell them, the Malaysian government, nothing..." That was Alvin Chong Chee Vun of Alvin Chong & Partners, Kuching, sharing his "trade secret" about the offshore jurisdiction mechanism in Singapore, which he said would not comply with requests from Malaysian authorities for information about such agreements.
So many talents, so little space. Too bad we only have 710 sq km to squeeze them all in.
