A Love-Nest of One’s Own

There are no virgin marriages, says billionaire Bhupendra Kumar Bodi

He’s right. Your place or mine?

Love it or not, Singapore is undeniably a slightly wacky place. Disneyland with the death penalty? Government bans on selling chewing gum? A family-oriented place that is also a world class money-laundering center? It’s all here, folks.

Now, billionaire Bhupendra Kumar Modi, chairman of the Spices Global business group and someone who was recently granted Singapore citizenship, has weighed in with a policy proposal to reverse Singapore’s falling birth rates and aging population – give the young people a chance to buy their own government flats to get away from Mom and Dad’s prudishly prying eyes. You see, Singapore currently has a rule that government-built housing, which accounts for 82% of dwellings for Singaporeans, are prioritized for family buyers. An unmarried adult needs to be over 35 to buy flats built by the Housing and Development Board.

As reported in this Bloomberg article, Mr. Modi believes the policy deprives young singles the opportunities to regularly act on their sexual urges. “Most of the girls and boys these days would like to have sex before they marry,” he says. “There are no virgin marriages.” His underlying concern is that Singapore’s current lowly birth rate of 1.3 children per woman is gradually draining the city state of its vital work force. However, standing against him in this view are both socially conservative types who don’t believe in the morality of pre-marital sex as well as government officials who want to keep a damper on soaring property prices.

Singapore is sometimes referred to as a “nanny” state, given its tendency to try to coddle its population. With policy nannies such as Mr. Modi pushing such accommodating family values, Singapore’s young and amorously frustrated should be dancing in the street. With any luck, they’ll soon be engaged in other coupling activities more frequently. And privately.

Tiger Mom or Money Launderer?

A dorm with a view.

The popular perception is that Chinese people see the world through long term horizons - they measure time generationally rather than weekly or quarterly as do Americans. Those looking to perpetuate that view need look no further than the case of the Chinese mother who has spent US$6.5 million on a New York apartment near Fifth Avenue to house her daughter when the girl eventually (and no doubt inevitably, damn it!) attends an Ivy League university. A typical over-achieving, over-coddling Asian Tiger Mom? Maybe, but with a distinctive twist: her daughter is just two years old. This Business Insider article provides further details.

This woman obviously lives with purpose and vision. However, what she sees perhaps only she knows. A bright academic future for her brilliant child? An optimistic view of high-end Manhattan real estate? A great opportunity to put some idle, possibly “dirty”, offshore cash to work by converting it into a hard asset? Maybe all of the above. Speculation on what is going on has lit up the Chinese microblog sites. If nothing else, we’ll find out in sixteen years.

China’s First World First Lady

The popular media’s opinion is in: this past week’s lead story about China’s new leadership under President Xi Jinping had less to do with him and more to do with his better half, Peng Liyuan. One picture says it all. Here it is.

Two questions come to mind. Why did it take fifty years for China to have such an attractive, presentable first lady? And good god, is that a Tod’s bag she’s carrying?? The blogosphere was in overdrive last week trying to figure out what leather product she used to tote around her personal items when she accompanied her husband on their state visit to Russia. As it turns out, the bag and her smart-looking outfit were both created by a Chinese designer – Exception (as reported in www.wantchinatimes.com). For this, she can be further commended for having the keen sense to avoid stepping in PR doo-doo while her husband wages a domestic war against luxury products for government officials.

Such is the staid, faceless look of China’s political leadership (now that Bo Xilai is out of favor) that a hottie first lady, a former singer who can rival the likes of Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, can steal the media thunder from a geopolitically strategic visit with President Putin. But perhaps a little historical context would be useful. Below are pictures of her predecessors.

Hu Jintao and wife

Deng Xiaoping and wife

Jiang Zemin and wife

Need I say more? At the risk of seeming to have a sensibility no deeper than tabloid papparazzi, I have to admit that I get why the Chinese public is in such a tizzy about Ms. Peng. After all, the country has a bit of a history deifying certain personalities, whether supreme party leaders or emperors. In this age of lightning-fast internet coverage and worship of superficial appearances, perhaps it’s time for another media empress to step forth to help soften the starchiness of China’s current crop of leaders.   

Asia 1% as a Cityscape

Want to see what the ascendancy of Asia's 1% would look like as an urban snapshot? Here it is, thanks to Shanghaiist.com. Ah, what a difference twenty years makes...

Shanghai 1990, 2010.

Dying for a Good Job

A price too great

This South China Morning Post article details the deaths this week of two 40-something year old finance executives based in Hong Kong. They are Li Kai, chief executive of mainland-based Bosera Asset Management, and Mark Liinamaa, a research analyst with Citigroup. Li died of a brain hemorrhage while Liinamaa died of a heart attack. Both were on business trips when the tragedies befell them. Both deaths were attributed in part to work-related stress. The article also makes reference to two other similarly sudden deaths that have taken place on the Mainland in the last few years.

 

Often, the creation of personal wealth is a cause for pride and celebration. Hong Kong and China have experienced much of it in the past decade, even after the 2008 financial crisis. However, nothing good comes without certain costs, most of all to personal health. Work pressure, frequent travel, rich meals, heavy drinking and lack of exercise and life balance can exert a heavy price. Sometimes, sadly, that amount is incalculably high.

America: Land of the Free, Home of the Huge Wealth Gap

This is a chilling video about America's ballooning wealth gap. Whether the numbers are accurate or not, few people doubt a trend that is driving America towards economic feudalism. Socialism may be a dirty word to many in the U.S., but this type of inequality is an even more frightening vision of an alternative reality.

Forbes Billionaire List – 2013 Edition

Li Ka Shing – good reason to smile

It’s that time of year to feel puny again - the Forbes 2013 list of the world's most rich is out. Not surprisingly, given all the chatter about rising wealth inequality, billionaires as a class are richer than ever. This year, there are 1,426 of them, up from 1,226 last year, and they command $5.4 trillion in wealth. 2013 was a year when Asia surged up in its proportion of names, mainly on the strength of Hong Kong and China. Some initial statistics regarding Asia are as follows:

• Non-Japan Asia (excluding Australia and New Zealand) had 334 names, up from 267 in 2012. Nevertheless, Asia continued to trail the US, which had 442 names and Europe, which had 366.
• The geographic distribution of billionaires in Asia is in the chart below. After China (122) and India (55), Hong Kong with its measly 7 million population came in with a whopping 39 names. Singapore, which has approximately 70% of Hong Kong’s population, had 24. When it comes to wealthy, all hail the city states of Asia.

• Superman Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong outshone all other Asians again, but by an even bigger margin than before. He moved up from 9th in the world to 8th, with a whopping $6 billion increase in net worth to $31 billion. No other Asian cracked the world’s top 20.
• As with 2012, the next richest Asian was India’s Mukesh Ambani of the Reliance Group. However, given that his wealth dropped $1 billion, he only ranked 22nd. In general, the India names did not advance in 2013.
• Other Hong Kong-related names, including Lee Shau Kee (Henderson Group) and the Kwok brothers (Sun Hung Kai), did well on the back of Hong Kong’s continuing asset inflation (some would say ‘bubble’).
• China added 29 new names.

China+HK’s surge up the ranks of the world’s wealth elite continues. However, much of it is built on asset prices rather than the value of the output of industrial enterprises. How sustainable that wealth is, and how far it might fall in a world where hot money and ultra-low interest rates no longer exist, will be an interesting show to watch from my lowly, undersized footstool.