WSJ: Wealth over the edge in SG

Saw this as email in my phone this morning but didn't bother to read it until someone proposed it on Facebook. Link to article.

I hope my kids seeing it here will read the article.

I am certainly not in the minority to be unhappy what this government had made this place into.

Here are some excerpts from the article.


But Ault, who moved to Singapore three years ago, says he "no longer feels the magic" in Gotham, which still bears the scars of a financial crisis that knocked the wind out of much of its most extravagant party culture. Singapore, he says, is another matter. This is where he says the rich feel, well, rich, and unusually secure. And where they seem to know only one common language, the language of excess—all too shamelessly displayed in his club.

"One night, there were these kids here—literally kids in their 20s—who all had their own private jets," Ault recalls during another meeting, on a Thursday morning, leaning back on a leather couch in his club wearing bright-blue fuzzy slippers embroidered with a pink skull. "Serious jets, too. There was an A380 which was converted to include a pool and basketball court—it was ridiculous."

"What I see here is what I imagined must have happened in the U.S. in the 1880s, in the Gilded Age, when it first took over England in terms of wealth," he says. "It is truly shocking how much wealth there is—and how willing people are to spend it."

a few paragraphs later (it was a long article)

The rich in Singapore now find themselves with "new avenues to display their wealth," according to Garry Rodan, a fellow at the Asia Research Center at Murdoch University, while "aged Singaporeans with grossly inadequate savings can be seen on the streets collecting plastic bottles for recycling." Opportunities to move up the ladder, he says, are shrinking.

The stupid ones are the leaders in our government which time will tell are basically digging their career graves. The smart ones are the rich who had eagerly flocked here. However the smartest of the smart rich are wisely staying away. These are the wealth builders not the over the edge conspicuous consumers.

We would love the quiet wealth builders like Warren Buffett, but realistically why would he come? The flashy in the pan rich come and in their usual self defeating ways systematically destroy the attractiveness of this place that attracted them here in the first place. This government is a poor student of history. The rest of Singapore society will end up as collateral damage because of their poverty of values. We need to take back our country from them.

Update: March 9, 9:45am

I just read Bertha Henson excellent tongue in cheek commentary of this WSJ article on my phone. Hers is a much quicker and fun read than the original article.

Quietly I think she is carving a new alternative journalism life outside the very old ST. Not to compete with the MSM but to occupy unfilled niches and may be those who are poorly filled by others in her very new breakfastnetwork.sg. And breakfast? She wants you to read her site first because if you don't you probably wouldn't find the time to during the rest of the day. Well, I have only gone to that site once. Would I be become a regular reader? I think she will need to sell me that she isn't done yet until I continue with her to her Breakfast Network site.

Update: March 9, 9pm

Might as well also give the bling report color with a video from WSJ.