Dear Mr. Tan,
I have been following your blog for close to a year and from there I have learnt a great deal of things I can never learn from my lecturers or from the textbooks or courses that I take in school.
I attended your talk at NUS earlier today and I would like to thank you for sharing with us so many words of wisdom and financial knowledge that can only be accumulated through many decades of hard work and experience. Being a Computer Science major who spends a great deal of time on my studies, I had struggled even with simple financial terms like “unit trust” and “bonds”, but all thanks to you, I now have better knowledge of what they are.
Even though this is the first time that I have met you and I do not know you personally, you come across as a modest person from humble backgrounds, unlike many of the so-called ‘elites’ in modern Singapore who can never understand the lives of the commoners. What I have also learnt from you is not just about money, but also about life: to stay healthy and lead a good life, to know the limits and not succumb to the sin of greed, to learn to let it go when it is our time to leave this world and not leave a mountain of debt accumulated from medical expenses behind for our family.
Being a Singaporean, I must admit that I feel shameful for a government that focuses all its attention on making money and accumulating wealth, leaving welfare for the disadvantaged and old in society to the hands of the altruistic few.
I wish you all the best in your quest for the rights of the victims in the minibonds crisis, and the very best of health and happy lives for you and your family.
PX
Everywhere I go, people are saying greed is bad. Actually not so. There's really nothing wrong with making excessive money IF ONE GIVE EXCESSIVE VALUE in return.
ReplyDeleteGreed backed with integrity is good. It's that that creates great company, gives people jobs, give them salary so they can buy gifts for their love ones.
Most of the time when people complain about greed, it's when they can't see the value in return.
The world works on the principle of equivalent trade. To receive something of value, one must sacrifice something of similar value FIRST. It's applicable for every facet of life.
It is all righ to earn more, by working hard and honestly, and not by cheating other people. Greed usually comes with cheating.
ReplyDeleteGreed never comes with integrity, ambition perhaps but NOT greed
ReplyDeletethe issue now is not really GREED but mis-representation...personally I don't think your average aunty and uncle was greedy to want a 5% interest for their investment
they mis-led and mis-sold them the idea that their investment was very low risks
that is the heart of the problem !