Ever wonder how come Consumer Confidence is used to gauge optimism/pessimism & not Citizen Confidence? I find it kinda weird to use consume, consume, consume to indicate whether people are optimistic/pessimistic. We as a society has seen large numbers of people mutated from citizens into consumers.
What is the difference between citizen & consumer?
A layperson doesn't need such survey to know the general gloomy outlook among many sinkies & SMEs which are being sucked dry by Party Against People's State Capitalism approach & the manipulated property market's killer rents.
Most would cut back on spending. Again this goes back to the domino effect: Spending down-->Businesses down & slain by killer rent--> Workers lose jobs & can't pay exorbitant mortgages-->Subprime crisis(S'pore). How long can the profits from REITs go on? Is gonna end, thus i consider reits risky.
Significant opportunities for financial services industry? There's always a bull market somewhere & here it is... Sharks are drawn to blood since more people are stashing more $$ & less spending. This reminds me of what Robert Kiyosaki said:
"Asking Wall Street to provide financial education is the same as asking a fox to raise your chickens. If the fox is smart, the fox will be patient & raise very fat chickens. The fox works hard to gain the chickens' trust... so he cares for them by providing slick brochures, branch offices & good looking salespeople who have been trained to sound like investors. The chickens mistakenly believe the financial planner is looking after them, will make them rich & protect them from the harsh cruel world outside the chicken coop."
Whether the person's portfolio goes up or down, the financial services industry will have a bite of it via management fees of the actively managed funds being sold.
Sinkies looking for ways to preserve & protect their wealth? How come is not growing wealth? Is like having all the football players on your team to focus on defense & neglect offense. How to score goals with that mentality? With such a scared lose attitude is no wonder many sinkies are screwed left, right & centre - they deserve it.
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S'poreans "pessimistic about future"
By Monica Kotwani
Singaporeans seem to be pessimistic about the future, according to the latest report by research firm Nielsen.
Its global survey on spending intentions found that consumer confidence in Singapore remains at its lowest, in more than 2 years.
Singapore's Consumer Confidence Index stood at 94 points.
Consumer confidence levels above & below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism & pessimism, respectively.
Survey, conducted between November & December last year, revealed 29% of Singaporeans thought the country was in economic recession.
Of those who believed so, 44% said Singapore would not come out of recession this year.
55% also revealed pessimism over job prospects. The figure is higher than 47% who thought so, in the previous quarter.
Most will hold back on their spending.
Some 70% of respondents said they would put spare cash into savings.
32% said they planned to invest in stocks or mutual funds. That's slightly higher than the global average of about 19%.
Joan Koh, managing director of Nielsen Singapore, said: "Singaporeans are looking for ways to preserve & protect their wealth.
"These results indicate significant opportunities for the financial services industry in the country & in the region."
Survey covered some 28,000 respondents across 56 countries.
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