myth 31

'High cost of living is necessary in Singapore. With humans as the only resource in Singapore, therefore it's necessary to mantain high cost of living so that 90% of the population do not accumulate excess wealth.' by Orwell76 I am not sure whether to call this a myth or a national policy. I culled this from a posting by Orwell76 in the YPAP forum. The argument for this is that it is good to keep the people half full so that they will not be lazy. Another reason is that this will prevent the people from passing down too much wealth to their next generation and make them a parasitic generation, living on the handme downs of prosperous parents. This assumes that people who are wealthy from old wealth are going to suffer eventually when the wealth is gone as they would not be able to generate the same wealth to keep them going. The first problem of this assumption is that this is not really true as some of the new scions are very capable to producing more wealth. And for those who fear this, the next logical thing is to keep accumulating wealth, the more the better, to ensure not only 3 generations to be wealthy, but 30 generations. That is why many succumb to the evil of greed. And they keep lining up their pockets through legitimate and illegitimate ways till they are caught and their pockets emptied. Now is this an official policy? Robertteh quoted the Goh Keng Swee Doctrine ie keeping the people hungry and fighting fit. If this is true, then the heartlanders will be hardlanders for a long time, kept alive, half full and never be rich. And some policies of HDB actually support this thinking, like making it very hard for heartlanders to upgrade to private properties by making them pay a high market subsidy price that is pegged according to their income of 30 years, literally in debt for 30 years. And also the levies to be paid on the profits made when selling their flats. etc etc. Is this a myth or not?