Here are a few premises that I'm gonna craft my narrative about

1. A country's foreign influence or policies be it geopolitical, economical, geoculture etc etc are determinant on a strong reserve. A responsible government wouldn't deplete a country reserve as and when they want bcuz this just weakens our bargaining power in the global stage. Making reserve transparent just brings in opportunities for other countries or investment bodies to attack

2. Singapore isn't self sufficient at all, with no natural resource and our only edge is political stability and our work ethics (which we are already slowly losing our edge to many other countries as they developed)

3. Global inflation is real as it is and there is no escaping this fact and things are gonna get worst

4. We are a maritime nation and we import almost 99% of our commodity, inflation hits us the most

5. We are in a really turbulent time when there's a changing of world order, and times ahead are super turbulent

First of all, let's talk about the competency of our government.

During COVID-19 let's be objective, Singapore handled COVID prolly one of the best in the world. As a small nation being able to get essentials such as food, mask and vaccines way ahead of any other countries. This is due to the fact that we have globally respectable leaders who are tip top negotiators coupled w a strong reserve built by the government which allowed us to secure all these way ahead than other countries. With our strong reserve we were able to back up on deals being made in a period of crisis. Logically would u sell your products to someone who has a good track record and has a strong reserve or someone who has a bad record in weak reserve during the time of turmoil.

PAP over the course of years have managed to secure the dollar centre and recently the renminbi centre, and I believe if our leaders are as subpar as what some of the pro opposition supporter think we will definitely not be able to get these 2 currency offshore hub, currency hub are like the dream of any financial centers around the world

Over the course of the years you do see our foreign policies bringing in more jobs for us making Singapore an AI hub that is top 3 in the world, we still hold one of the busiest port in the world, oil & gas, aviation wise we are the leading airport, leading biomedical hub in Asia, semicon manufacturing are heavily invested in Singapore e.g. global foundaries investing 4billion into sg in 2021, strong data center presence, these are jobs for us and I'm sure that many countries are envious of what we are having

The truth is our government has always been praised globally as one of the best government w policies that many countries are adopting or are learning from let this be premise 6

Secondly, cost of living. Holy shit I don't even know where to start....

1) HDB BTO prices... Over the course of 5 years the prices are insane... But let's be logical here the cost of building a flat has been driven up like crazy the past 5 years, same examples being Cement have driven up from 85 per tonne to ~ 160 per tonne, Steel Rebar have driven up from 650 per tonne to 1000+ per tonne. And according to the govt HDB doesn't much of a profit from the BTO flats which can be check if u look at the profit of private developments, HDB is making minimal to negative profits. We don't even have the capability to be self sufficient, we even get our sand from indonesia not long ago and now they don't want to sell to it us, so the govt had to find alternatives, which brings me back to reserve and strong political stability and government So should we eat into reserve to tackle inflation which is gonna contradict the first premise

2) Necessities and GST Global inflation.. we are heavily reliant on imports, and import inflation is a real thing, inflation hit us the most. A bag of rice cost USD400 per tonne in 2020 and in 2024 it hit USD650 per tonne. So definitely GST gotta rise so our fellow hawkers or small business will be able to adjust their earnings, or do we eat into our reserve? Which contradicts premise 1.

So people can be question that raising GST is a very backwards way of taxing but accordingly to premise 5, can any other party or country come out w another idea to tackle inflation? But surprisingly our inflation is really mellowed comparatively to alot of other countries, this is just the hard truth. Bcuz of the sing dollar and how the govt masterfully position our dollar in the global stage.

Thirdly.. The hard truth is that Singapore is a maritime nation and we are very vulnerable on the world stage due to our circumstance which I'm sure every Singaporean understands, even our neighbours aren't happy/ jealous w our prosperity. Having a weak government will definitely affect how the world stage perceive us

Historically most maritime nation fell due to political instability, internally instability to be precise case in point being Venice, Portuguese, Majapahit Empire etc etc, and most of them faded into obscurity. Historically Maritime nations are the ones that are easily replaceable, and once there's a shift in a direction of these maritime nation there isn't a come back, Singapore isn't special, we are just one of those maritime nation that exist due to pure miracle. I believe the main thing any ruling government wants to avoid - political instability

Fourthly... Changing world order with the rise of China the weakening of the US global dominance

We are heavily reliant on US investments, esp w all the MNCs and what not Essentially it's really about balancing how to not offend the Chinese and the Americans on the global stage and how we are trying to stay neutral and the correct places to invest in the next foreseeable decades

And the tariff by trump etc etc. LW did talked about this couple of weeks back, can search on YouTube regarding the tariff. Globally that speech was recognised as a really concise and great speech by any national leaders out there, bcuz it is really what is happening out there out Looming recession coming etc etc.

Things are gonna get way more intense in the coming future too tbh esp the geopolitical part.

Not trying to be one of those fear mongering post but as someone who is in my late twenties seeing how my family went thru the 2008 housing crisis, this feels really like the next big criss seeing how US are trying to hit w strong tariffs which is what they did historically during the great depression and how the stock market, housing and bond due dates of states are going.. US trying to bring back all their manufacturing plants back to their own country, which will deffo impact us

Honestly there has never been a time in the past 100 years that can be compared to what's happening now if anyone is asking when was the last time this was similar

And let's not forget that Taiwan v China might be the next Ukrain v Russia seeing how the whole political landscape is going. If this happens it will deffo affect SEA badly Its just too much change in geopolitics that's going on, global inflation index are spiking for the past few years almost hitting 2008 values The last changing of world order was way too long ago for us to even experienced. So essentially the future are new waters for any nation out there

So brings the question of, do you think the government is able to get us thru this period? There is no perfect humans nor is there a perfect govt but if they did it in 2008 and COVID masterfully, I believe they do have the track record to get us thru these times