myth 100

Myth 100 'The third generation will squander the inheritance away' This is a famous Chinese myth. Frances Ong Hock Lin writes about it again in the Today paper, fearing that Singapore now under the third generation leadership, will squander away what the first two generations of leaders have built. From the way things are going, he can rest very assured that it will not happen. The myth will not apply to Singapore. I am not saying this because our third generation of leaders are the brightest of the three generations of leaders. There are many things that say otherwise. First we have accumulated so much wealth, and still accumulating, that unless there is an earthquake under our feet, we will get richer by the days. And these generations of leaders are so much richer than the first two generation of leaders. Don't try to compare their richness. It will blow your minds away. But that is not the point. The important thing is that they are maintaining the same policy of spending with surplus budget or other people's money. Look at the two IRs that we are building. Not only it is the operators paying for them, the govt is even making a handsome profit from land sales and later all the services like water and electricity and taxes from the profits. And now when the govt is trying to help the poor, it is the people's money again, the 2% GST, that will be used for this purpose, probably with extra for the govt's coffer. So don't worry, this myth will never come true. We can only grow richer. Only external events or a natural calamity can bring us down. Sleep well.