No asset bubble, said Malaysian Central Bank governor

Malaysia has addressed many issues, risks 

Zeti:‘There is confidence in the financialsystem.’- EPA  

KUALA LUMPUR: There is no reason to believe that Malaysia has seen the formation of an asset bubble that is about to burst, as the country has addressed many of the issues and risks related to it, says Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

She said three series of macro prudential measures had been introduced this year to avoid the very risk of the formation of such a bubble asset.

She was responding to a question on whether Malaysia was experiencing an asset bubble that would burst if China’s economy tumbled and as global interest rates rose, as reported recently by the foreign media.

“Conditions between now and in 1997/1998 are different. We are now on a growth path,” she told a press conference in conjunction with the South East Asian Central Banks (Seacen) 30th Anniversary Conference on Greater Financial Integration and Financial Stability and launch of the Seacen Financial Stability Journal.

Zeti said domestic demand was driving Malaysia’s economic growth and the country was not at the epicentre of the recent global financial crisis.

“Our financial intermediaries remain resilient and the supply of credit was never disrupted,” she added.

She said financial intermediation was continuing and financial markets continued to function.

“There is confidence in the financial system. This is the result of the focus over the last decade on financial reforms that have strengthened the foundation of our financial system.

“We believe that credit growth has moderated to a sustainable pace that supports the growth of the economy. In this regard, we continue to monitor conditions,” Zeti added.

Meanwhile, in her opening address at the conference, Zeti said the modernisation of the Asian financial system had been accompanied by a significant strengthening of the regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

She said it had also been accompanied by improved financial safety nets, a more effective surveillance of financial stability risks and stronger legal underpinnings.

“These reforms supported the transition towards more market-oriented financial systems that are anchored in stronger institutions, risk management capacity and governance,” she added.

“Our financial institutions are supported by stronger financial buffers to withstand adverse developments and shocks.

“Significant strides also continue to be made in strengthening consumer protection frameworks, promoting financial inclusion, and enhancing market discipline,” she said.

She also said these developments continued to support the region through the recent episodes of turbulence in the global financial markets.

“The region has also made important strides in enhancing monetary and financial cooperation arrangements to address regional financial stability issues and global policy spillovers.

“Much has been accomplished in the areas of surveillance arrangements, financial safety nets and crisis prevention, management and resolution,” she added.

On the Asian financial integration model for the ten Asean economies, Zeti said it was focused on strengthening pre-conditions through collective capacity building to promote more open market access.

“It also focuses on progressively reducing barriers to facilitate cross-border trade, developing the market infrastructure and an enabling environment to promote the efficient and effective intermediation of cross-border financial flows.

“It also focuses on establishing appropriate safeguards for the stability of the financial system,” she added.

Meanwhile, Bank Negara and the Bank of Korea jointly announced the establishment of a bilateral local currency swap arrangement. It is designed to promote the use of local currencies for bilateral trade and strengthen financial cooperation between Malaysia and South Korea, Bank Negara said in a statement.

This arrangement allows for the exchange of local currencies between the two central banks of up to five trillion Korean won or RM15bil.

The effective period of the arrangement is three years, and could be extended by mutual agreement between the central banks. - Bernama

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Erosion of confidence: US avoided a debt default, debt ceiling shifted to next year

It happened again last week – at the last minute the United States avoided debt default. But the world is losing patience with this latest episode of dysfunctional leadership.

THE world waited with bated breath as the deadline neared. And breathed a sigh of relief when at the last minute, the United States avoided crossing its “debt ceiling” and a default on its debts.

The debt ceiling was raised, and the government shutdown also ended last Thursday after weeks of a high-profile standoff between US President Barrack Obama and the Republicans in Congress.

But this relief was mixed with incredulity and frustration.

First, the respite is only temporary; the can is just kicked down the road.

The deadlines for government shutdown and debt ceiling are shifted some weeks away to January and February next year.

Second, this fiasco has happened several times already.

Each time the Congress gave the President a reprieve of just a few more months, before the new deadline loomed again.

The Republicans are adamant to cut the government’s spending and its budget deficit and won’t allow the government to function unless they get what they want.

Previously, Obama compromised and gave in significantly.This time, he stood firm and refused to negotiate.

The Republicans went too far, choosing to defund and damage his landmark medical insurance reform as a condition for lifting the debt ceiling.

Obama decided “enough is enough” and relied on public opinion to win his gamble. The Republican Party blinked, as the public heaped the blame on them.

The party leaders in Congress had to eat humble pie and agree to stop the shutdown and lift the debt ceiling without defunding or changing the “Obamacare” health reform.

But thirdly, while the President finally showed the Republicans who was boss, the damage had already been done to the United States’ image as a superpower and the champion of American-style democracy.

The US system of governance has become dysfunctional, with one side of the political divide willing and able to paralyse the government functions led by the other side, using the weapon of withholding approval of the government’s budget and capacity to borrow.

Just days before the deadline, the world’s finance ministers meeting at the annual IMF-World Bank meeting in Washington highlighted the extreme dangers of a US debt default.

Around the world, leaders and analysts mourned the end of the past certainties surrounding the United States and its dollar as the world’s financial leader.

A widely-quoted article in China’s Xinhua news agency was titled: “Washington’s political chaos proves it’s time for a de-Americanised world.”

The commentator, Liu Chang, said the latest crisis reveals that the United States is unfit to govern itself, let alone lord it over the rest of us.

“It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world.”

After castigating the United States for meddling in the political affairs of countries in its efforts in building a world empire, the writer attacks a self-serving Washington for shifting financial risks overseas, while the debt ceiling crisis “has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonised”.

“Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing.

“Part of that reform is the introduction of a new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States.”

As the Xinhua opinion piece indicated, many countries are concerned about the US dollar being the world’s dominant currency. It is by far the most important reserve currency.

Countries holding US dollar treasury bills have been worried about the once unthinkable, that the US would be unable to honour its debt service obligations, thus putting their hard-earned assets in jeopardy.

On the other hand, countries that took loans denominated in US dollars could face punishing terms of repayment if the interest rate on the US dollar shoots up upon fears of a US debt default.

Companies, traders and governments that use the US dollar as the medium of exchange would also suffer from chaos in the markets for money, commodities and trade, if there is a massive loss of confidence in the US and its dollar.

Thus, continuing uncertainty arising from feuds in Washington will accelerate the erosion of confidence in the US as world economic leader.

The Financial Times columinist Martin Wolf commented that the US debt ceiling is the legislative equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and that the law needs to be repealed since there cannot be orderly government under so destructive a threat.

But another editorial comment in The Independent states that while there is a straightforward case to ditch the debt ceiling law, the same extremists who use it as a weapon of mass destruction will be loath to part with it.

In the past few days, some Democrat and Republican leaders in charge of budget policy in Congress have started meeting, giving hope they plan to avoid a repeat of the fiasco when the budget and debt ceiling deadlines re-appear in a few months.

But given the polarisation and ideological divides in Washington, chances are that the world will be treated to another round of the battle and the chaos. If that happens, there will be more calls for a new world order.

Contributed by Global Trends by Martin Khor
> The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

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Kinect Technologies for PCs, can track you through walls

Intel’s gesture control tech will be built into PCs from 2014

Ever since Microsoft’s Kinect came out, it has been wondering when the technology would get built into PCs. Yes, there is Kinect for Windows, but it’s a peripheral — about having advanced motion detection capabilities in the webcam, as a bridge to exciting future user interfaces.

Well, today, such technology is on its way, but not from Microsoft. No, it’s Intel that the PC manufacturers are talking to, and it’s not Kinect that’s the base: it’s Intel’s perceptual computing technology.

According to Paul Tapp, senior product manager in Intel’s perceptual computing division, manufacturers have “committed to doing it” in 2014 – “it” being the integration of an Intel-designed motion-detection system into their machines. And in the meanwhile, peripherals maker Creative put its $210 Senz3D, the first retail device to use the technology.

Creative’s Senz3D camera is up for pre-order. It’s the first peripheral to use Intel’s perceptual computing tech, which will be built into computers from next year. >>

Contributed by By David Meyer Gigaom.com

MIT’s ‘Kinect of the future’ can track you through walls

Researchers from MIT have unveiled a new form of motion tracking that uses a three-point system to follow a person’s position, even through a totally opaque wall. Though the word “Kinect” has been thrown around quite liberally for the sake of accessibility, this is strictly a positional tracker — that means that it won’t be interpreting sign language or reading lips any time soon. Rather than being a control mechanism, this device is purely for keeping tabs on users as they move both within and between rooms. At present the tracker is set up directionally, so it can only see through the single wall at which it is pointed, but the obvious end goal is an omnidirectional tracker that could follow a user through the whole house, upstairs and down.

The system works using three radio antennas spaced about a meter apart to bounce signals off a person’s body. Even through the researchers’ office wall, it can follow people with an accuracy of up to 10 centimeters (four inches), better than WiFi localization can currently provide. Though the device is exploded and sitting as component parts at present, one grad student working on the project said they expect to be able to condense it down to a final unit no larger than Microsoft’s Kinect sensor.

Beyond the loss of Kinect-like image and silhouette tracking, the MIT system can also only track a single person at a time. A second moving object within the system’s field of view will cause confusion and make the system useless — though that problem is, of course, to be addressed soon. It also has trouble with stationary objects, but they already have a first pass on an algorithm to get around this by recognizing the motion of a person breathing.

Applications for the technology, assuming its kinks and limitations are addressed, are numerous. There are the obvious gaming applications, perhaps blurring the line between real and virtual locations as players stalk through real hallways full of video-game enemies. All Oculus Rift fantasies aside though, there are plenty of more substantive reasons to be excited about the ability to keep track of people without their need to carry a transmitter. Rather than installing motion trackers in every corner of the home, a single tracker near the center might be able to intelligently turn the lights on and off as you move from room to room.

Architects and advertising researchers would love to know how people move through a particular space, where they spend their time, and what places they tend to avoid. The health care industry could keep better track of people in need of supervision, receiving an alert if, say, a person with dementia begins to wander away.

Though it’s a sprawling array today, the researchers say that the device could end up smaller than a Kinect.>>

Of course, there are also the more troubling possible uses. WiFi localization currently requires users to hold a tracking device, while more versatile options like holographic localization are slow and low fidelity. MIT is now bringing a high degree of accuracy and usability together with the versatility that comes with being able to track people who have never consented to be tracked. If the signal could be made strong enough, it could render prison break-outs virtually impossible, or let law enforcement quickly check the number and position of people in a hostage situation.

Human and civil rights activists might have something to say about such applications, however. That’s really the downfall of a catch-all people-tracker for use outside of private homes: I can’t imagine a world in which its use would remain legal for long. People are leery enough about ad agencies tracking their online activities — how might people react to the idea of a company monetizing their walking path through the local mall? The Kinect has already got certain people up in arms over just the possibility of always-on functionality, and that would only have mattered when the user was standing directly in front of their television.

The team has a patent pending for the technology, but the concept seems like it would be easy enough to adapt with slight changes. It’s still in its infancy, but finding a person through a wall by picking up on their breathing is about as strong a proof of concept as they could ever have hoped for.

Contributed by Graham Templeton Extremetech.com

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