At first you have poor people asking govt for help to buy food to get buy. Govt was very angry. How much you want? You want to eat in the hawker centre, foodcourt or restaurant.
Then the middle class crying money not enough. Their money all gone to buying affordable govt built flats and needed 30 years to service the loans. And just when they have paid up their loans, they lost their jobs. But wait, they thought things would not be that bad as they had carefully put aside a large chunk of their money in the CPF. The shock came when the govt said, this money cannot touch, must be used to buy medical insurance and life annuities for life long protection and to provide them a few hundred dollars a month for life. Sounds good, but with high inflation, money not enough again. So these millionaires, their flats all worth half a million or more, again got money problem and needed govt to help them.
The latest, multi millionaires and billionaires also asking the govt for help. Because their fortunes are all tied up with the billions of dollars of properties they are holding. Now, after so many decades of making millions and becoming exceptionally wealthy, they are multi millionaires and billionaires not for no reason, they want the govt to help them to sell their properties at good prices, better than affordable prices, not that they cannot sell them by themselves.
Who would be next to need govt’s financial assistance? I heard the next group would be the ministers when they lost their election in the next GE. And if the PAP is no longer in power, where are they going to get paid the same millions to maintain their millionaire lifestyle when the GLCs would not be offering them any chairmanship or directorship appointments as ex ministers? Without such appointments who in their right mind, in the private sector, will be willing to pay them by the millions to maintain their lifestyles?
By then the new govt may be in a dilemma. How to justify to pay them millions to help them to live without affecting their quality of life? Hopefully not necessary as quite a number of them are really billionaires or worth hundreds of millions. For those who are not, would the next minister be asking how much they want or whether they want to eat in the hawker centre, foodcourt or restaurant?
Sin City is the only super rich city where millionaires, half millionaires and billionaires are all asking the govt for financial help. Yes, there is no poor people in SinCity, only half millionaires, millionaires and billionaires.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/