Staking a claim to the nation's reserves

 Singapore is very proud of its $1 trillion reserves or thereabout. It is too complicated to know the exact amount, or maybe it is a state secret. The mentioning of this $1 trillion reserves would make every Singaporean salivate. And that is the closest they could get to this mountain of money. Can see cannot touch, or maybe a little handouts now and then, and must be very grateful for the mercy of the handlers. And don't developed a crutch mentality on these handouts.

The handsome reserves did not come about by accident, did not come about yesterday. It was carefully accumulated over the last few decades by the sweat and tears of the pioneering generations and the younger seniors of the country. Thanks to the wisdom and thrift of the pioneering leaders that have left us, for planting the trees, and the seniors for helping to put in the fertilisers, and the fruits are hanging all over to be picked. The reserves were meant for a rainy day and we had some rainy days and some of the reserves came in handy when needed.

There are some questions that people may be wondering about the reserves. Who were the people behind the creation of this wealth? Who were the main contributors to this wealth? And who should be the beneficiaries of this wealth? The answers may seem obvious, the main contributors of the nation's reserves must be the main beneficiaries of the wealth they contributed and helped to create. Is this so? Caveat, most of the deserving pioneering leaders and contributors would not be around to benefit from it.

Who do you think are the real beneficiaries of the nation's reserves? One big beneficiary is the fund managers or people in charge of the reserves. They are paid handsomely, very handsomely. For the fund managers, they are in a way mercenaries, hired to grow the reserves. If they are doing a good job, made good returns, no one shall begrudged how much they are being paid as long as they could give a positive return after their compensation. This is the basic formula and reason to pay the fund managers well. If they are not performing, giving lesser returns than expected, or even making losses, it would be better to put the reserves in high yield deposits than paying for losses or meagre returns from the fund managers.

Who else are benefiting from the nation's reserves? Who else are being paid excessively because there is a mountain of money there to pay them the millions they are asking? Some even take it for granted that they deserved or are entitled to be paid in the millions. If this mountain of money is not there, could they still be expecting to be paid in the millions? Oops, there is always the taxes and hikes to make up. The entitlement mentality is deeply entrenched in the system when the supply of funds to pay in the millions is unstoppable.

Who else are benefiting from the reserves? Are foreigners, ie PRs or so called locals, and new citizens also benefiting from the reserves accumulated over decades by the earlier generations of the citizens? Should PRs or locals that are non citizens be benefiting from our nation's reserves? Should new citizens that have yet to contribute to the nation's reserves be entitled to handouts from the nation's reserves like the citizens that contributed to it over their life time? Being generous to the non deserving is being cruel to the main contributors of the reserves, as it would bite into their share of the reserves.

And the big question, are the main contributors of the nation's reserves fairly rewarded for their contributions, or they are only given a pittance? Is it fair for the seniors that contributed to the nation's reserves to expect a decent dividend from the nation's reserves, yes, expecting it to be their ATM in their retirement when others are feasting from the nation's reserves like a god given right?

What do you think? Who is the most deserving to benefit from the nation's reserves? And are they getting their fair share or seen as a burden, not deserving beggars?