Alan Ramos, IDA and the problem with mid-career IT engineers.

I promised a more detailed treatment about the Alan Ramos incident. For further details and background, you may refer to the following article here :

http://therealsingapore.com/content/mexican-ida-officer-charged-having-sex-15-year-old

Basically, many netizens were upset with my previous employer for hiring a Mexican Harvard psychology graduate when it was perceived that many Singaporean mid-career engineers are in a dire need of a job. When confronted on FB, IDA was silent on why it made the decision to hire Alan Ramos.

I did not meet Alan during my stay in IDA. In fact, I met him at Barcamp prior to becoming a public officer. My impression of him was quite good, he seemed dynamic and could think quickly on his feet although I felt he was overselling his Harvard credentials at that time. I did spend some time wondering what happened to this Boy Wonder throughout my stay in IDA. That was until I read the news that he was involved with an underaged prostitute.

My aim for this posting is to not to represent IDA, but to share what I think could have been a better alternative than keeping silent on the decision to hire Alan Ramos. I also would need to do this in a way that is fair to my previous employer, where I still have many friends.

Right now, I doubt that any officer could have provided an answer the way I did because any message would have been heavily censored before it was placed on FB. This is just the way the government bureaucracy works. Career risk is very high for many senior public servants, there is simply too much incentive not to make mistakes rather than to do something which the public perceives as being the "right" thing to do.

Now to the gist of why agencies needs the likes of Alan Ramos :

To address the question of hiring psychology graduates, you need to really understand that IDA is not IBM, HP or even NCS - IDA is a government agency. Dollars and cents are not the most precious currency in a government organization. IMHO, the most precious currency is accountability - a chain of documents and paperwork which can demonstrate integrity of any officer and his superiors if subject to the scrutiny of any auditor.

Unless you work in GCIO which is the IT department that runs the government servers, you are a bureaucrat who will spend a lot of time writing approval papers and making power point presentations. As such, I think that a project manager who has spent 20 years on SDLC would make a horrible government servant, unless he likes doing documentation, I would bet that he would be surprised at the amount of paperwork which needs to be done just to keep the project running.

In such a situation, having a public officer who is trained in the liberal arts like Alan Ramos would make much more sense. His papers would be riddled with fewer grammatical errors and psychology majors have a knack for reading other people, which in my opinion, more important in an agency because a lot of presentations require a large amount of mind-reading so that it can pushed to another layer of approval. Liberal arts majors also do a little bit of science subjects so it may be possible that Alan may have taken a Computer Science module or two before getting hired.

The next item which I would like to address is the problem of mid-career engineers. Like me, you might think that you do have the skills that makes you entitled to an iron rice bowl in a government agency.

The hard and bitter truth about an engineering career is that it needs to be maintained to stay relevant. Most of us in our 40s have worthless degrees with a resume full of project victories which employ outmoded technologies or IT management frameworks.

If you are an operations PM who knows ITIL at the back of your hand, DevOps is the new killer management paradigm which threatens your livelihood by having developers manage their change processes over the cloud without operations staff.

What is the use of having SDLC experience when a lot of organizations are looking at AGILE methodology which is cheaper and results in software that better serves the needs to the companies.

Can a DBA set-up a Hadoop cluster ?

Are you a software engineer stuck in the C# .NET framework when the hottest programming languages are Python and Ruby ?

Can an old school TCP/IP stack engineer re-tool himself for the Internet of Things ?

Can an algorithms expert understand Naive Bayes or the working of the K Nearest Neighbour algorithm ?

In the short term, engineers have the hottest skills to get the best tech jobs. After 10 years, there will be enough technology disruption to render your skills worthless, that's even if you  hold a tech job continuously because your company may not change as fast as the tech industry.

At least Alan Ramos still has his liberal arts background which is timeless and allows him to adapt to changes in any industry.

To many mid-career engineers,  it looks like an iron rice-bowl is a great way to escape the great obsolescence that awaits all engineering careers, but from my personal experience, many of us are really not suited to government careers.

Instead I recommend the following :

a) Can you earn your income from investments ?
b) Do you have the skills and capital to start a small business ?
c) Why not obtain a taxi license ?

Alan Ramos will be fully dealt with by the law, but don't begrudge his skills and training, they may really be more suited to a government agency than you think.

What's wrong with getting financial advice from a billionaire like Li Ka-shing ?

Lately, a translated article from Li Ka-Shing was being circulated  on the Internet. Compared to the usual advice that some of the gurus were to provide, it's actually not bad. Li Ka-Shing comes across as a pretty progressive and modern person who has some down-to-earth advice for everyone.

You may judge for yourself by reading the article here :

http://mirror.e27.co/li-ka-shing-teaches-buy-car-house-5-years/

I'm not going to be like the rest of the Internet and talk about what a great article this is.

If you are a florist struggling after the World War in HK, following this advice will likely make you a billionaire. Otherwise, advice is advice. It should be judged by how many millionaires you can make with it. And as a previous shareholder who owned HPH Trust, I will not take anything that a seasoned businessman say without applying my own critical thinking skills to his ideas.

Here's my take  :

a) 25% as start-up capital 

Li Ka-Shing advocates putting aside 25% of one's income as start-up capital. Strangely, he does not advocate savings. The aim of this fund is to ultimately do a business. This belongs to the class of advice which worked for Li Ka-Shing but may not work for most average Joes. As a savings component, 25% is too low  ( At least start at a ridiculous 50% so that every month of work earns a month of rest ).  

Most people suck at business which explains why the high failure rate. In our current economic situation, businessmen need to contend with high labor costs and rents as well.

I think I would rather critically examine how LKS and Son actually make their money, which is to invest in toll-like investments and get tenants or broadband subscribers to  pay to use their infrastructure. When these assets reach critical value, spin it off in SGX and sell it to Singapore investors, let them deal with port strikes and slower Chinese growth that come soon after divestment.

Start investing early to get the compounding engine in your 20s. If you come across a business idea which trumps your portfolio of real estate, manufacturing firms or toll businesses, then think about running a business.

You are more likely to succeed as a long-term investor, similarly you are more likely to fail in a small business.

b) 20% to pay for lunch with friends

20% is a crazy amount for net-working. Do make sure if this is done in Singapore, the person you are giving a treat to is not a government servant. I spent some time re-examining this advice and I wonder if there is a hidden meaning embedded in those words that can only be appreciated within the context of a Chinese regime. In a Chinese SAR like HK, you can definitely knock yourself out giving treats to supposedly 'useful' people. But in Singapore, it may be better to stick to a hawker centre or food-court and exchange knowledge and practical advice instead.

I would take this budget out completely and merge this into the savings budget. Instead, I will invite friends out to discuss the economy, business ideas, good investments and the latest books over $1 kopi-o.

c) 10% for travel and the broadening of horizons.

This is not such a bad idea, but can we  travel as part of work ? During my younger days, I used leave to extend my travel so that I can see other parts of the world on company budget. Yes, I've not been to Disneyland, but I built outsourcing teams in KL and Bangalore. Anyway 10% of my savings when I was 25 would not get me beyond South-East Asia.

I would also bunch this budget into the investment budget. And when you are in your 20s, if  you wanna recharge go to KL over the weekend.

d) When you are poor, spend money so that people can see it.

It is this advice that really rubbed me the wrong way. Some old folks may have this idea that you gotta fake it until you make it. In the good old days, people might take your word for it, just be a slick salesman. But these days, we live in a high-surveillance society. People will use social media to find out what you're really made of and verify your claims. It's also much harder to sell to a sophisticated web-savvy customer.

Showing off by using bright and expensive clothes may work in a Toastmasters competition, but when it comes to work, every bit of substance counts.

Don't believe me ? Google Richard Li and you will find that he regrets claiming that he had a Stanford degree but he dropped out.

I would say respect decorum when the need arises and dress to meet standards. You should also be consistent as to the kind of person you are regardless of whether you are rich or poor, otherwise, your friends who helped you in the past will say that you have changed.

In summary, I think LKS has shared good advice to many readers, but it's more fun to examine the context by which this advice holds true.

In a similar vein in Singapore, many multi-millionaire trainers exist to give advice to ordinary people. The advice should be assessed by looking at how useful it is to the ordinary folks and not judged solely by the wealth of the trainer.

What single dudes can learn from the Investment masters on Valentine's day !

There are many parallel's between finding a perfect portfolio and searching for a good spouse.

On Valentine's day, let's look at at some concepts in investing which can be easily translated into the realm of Love and Romance.

a) You need to know what you want.

In fundamental analysis, some investors search for value stocks and some go for growth stocks with a great story. Similarly, you need to have an idea of what kind of girl would suit you in a relationship. Not spending time thinking about this problem will result in having needs which only a few women can fulfill on planet Earth, i.e. you might end up wanting a decent and conservative girl that will whip you silly and rock your world in bed.

A growth stock is like the hot, tanned chick in a bikini who pole dances and can show you her hidden tattoo if you are nice to her. A value stock is like a beautiful girl who loves playing with children and who is courteous to your parents and gentle with you. Some people go for growth, others, go for value.

b) You need go to the right place to find that special someone 

Once you know the kind the stock you are looking for, you need to set up a screen to filter through the universe of stocks in SGX. Value investors go for low P/B, P/S, P/E with high free cash flow and dividend yield. Growth investors go for the consistent growth in revenues and EPS for the past 5 years and a story to sustain that momentum.

Similarly, conscientious girls are best found in schools and the accounting department in the workplace. If you want someone fun and outgoing, you can always go for dance classes. Don't go to a venue to find a particular type of girl that generally does not exist there. I could be proven wrong, but I doubt you can easily find a conservative and gentle mother for your children if your hunting ground is in China Black.( Note : I know there's no more China Black but you get the picture. )

c) Getting a wingman or a male friend to comment on someone who is your potential target.

Sometimes it's hard to understand why a stock is being sold as a bargain. Maybe there is forex risk. The company may be losing out to an innovative upstart. Or the stock belongs to a sunset industry. Reading the comments of a good financial blogger would give you an idea owning the stock is a good idea.

Similarly, perfectly good-looking women may be single in her late thirties. A wise guy will find out why this is so by probing her friends or doing some research. Maybe the hot-chick is tremendously neurotic or she is expensive to upkeep. The dating market can be as competitive as the finance market. Many good ones are already taken during University.

You need to find someone with a flaw that you can tolerate to be happy in this world.

d) Determine your appropriate level of commitment.

If you are just scoping the stock the first time, keep your exposure to a minimum at 1% of your portfolio. After a few quarters and some dividends later, you will have a keen idea of whether this stock is one to keep in your portfolio. You can increase your exposure to 5-10% if that is the case.

Similarly in dating, you should not be rash. When you first get to know someone, dating casually will do. A person who thinks like an investor will certainly not go for one night stands ( that's for the folks who play options ).  Make sure that you really know someone and her family before you commit to a marriage or cohabitation.

So there you have it. By training yourself to be good at picking stocks, you will find that many techniques can be brought to other areas in your life.

Hope that you have a Happy Valentine's day and have found someone that you can truly buy-and-hold for the rest of your life.

What Streetfighter II has taught me about finance.

For the past week, I've been trying to game the Bloomberg machines at the Central Library. Patrons are limited to 1 hour of use per day. This really reminds me of the time I had to queue for a Streetfighter II machine at the NCO club which was next to Raffles City about 20 years ago.

Time flies, but some things ever change. My Blanka would not last every long against the kids and Bengs who were very good at the game. Similarly, the Blooomberg machine has shed some harsh truths about the various investment strategies used by fundamental analysts.

My objective for getting the Bloomberg machine is to first myself in its use and then to see if I can derive some interesting insight on Singapore markets.

As I'm still pretty new at Bloomberg, I was able to use the stock filters and do some back-testing on local stocks. Try not to use some of the results I present here as investment advice but possibly as something which can lead to better insights on fundamental analysis in the future.

All numbers take the top 10% percentile of stocks in the Singapore universe. Portfolio is equally weighted among different stocks and rebalanced annually and backtested over 10 years.

Lowest P/B ratio gave mean return of 42.79% with standard deviation of 20.46%
Lowest P/S ratio gave mean return of 38.51% with standard deviation of 22%
Lowest P/FCF ratio gave mean return of 30.57% with standard deviation of 19.75%
Lowest P/E ratio gave mean return of 29.05 with standard deviation of 19.43%
Highest dividend yield gave mean return of 23.37% with standard deviation of 15.02%
Highest dividend growth over 5 years gave mean return of 16.67% with standard deviation of 16.66%.
Highest ROIC gave mean return of 19.59% with standard deviation of 18.84%

Here's the best part, if you design an equally weighted portfolio of Singapore stocks you will get a mean return of 32% with a standard deviation of 20.06%

The only decent conclusion so far is that an equally weighted portfolio would result in a fairly decent performance against other strategies which includes my favorite high yield strategy ( which has merit only because of it's low volatility ).

Over the next few weeks, I will be refining my filters to cover multiple criteria and expanding my backtest to cover 20% percentile of stocks since employing only 10% of the universe results in a higher volatility.

Why Malaysian Chinese already rule Singapore ?

In case you might be thinking that I'm pulling yet another Adam Khoo...

Happy Chinese New Year !!!!

Singaporeans with a Malaysian background already dominate many spheres in Singapore. Our nation has grown from the brain gain that we have received from their ethnic Chinese population.

Khaw Boon Wan ,our National Development minister, came from Penang and should recently be congratulated for reducing COV to about $5,000.

Olivia Lum, founder of Hyflux, started out the in sleepy Malaysian town of  Kampar and is responsible for the creation of many local jobs in Singapore today.

According to The Triple Package by Amy Chua of the Tiger Mother fame, Malaysian Chinese form an ethnic group which I think has the same traits as many successful American immigrants today.

Let's examine each component of this Triple Package :

a) Sense of Superiority

We can say that Malaysian Chinese do have a sense of superiority. While it is'nt targetted towards Singaporeans, I would say that they feel very much persecuted at home and denied many privileges back in Malaysia. Many could have done well in the Universities in the north but are very much better off studying here where their merits can be recognised in our country. The sense of superiority would be directed back to their homeland where they feel that they are still doing well economically despite being constantly forced to function with a handicap.

b) Insecurity

Although Malaysians do integrate well in Singapore compared to other foreign talent. It would be naive to think that they do not suffer from some scorn within Singaporean society today. Some Singaporean Chinese complain that they speak Mandarin with a strong accent, and many are disadvantaged in the workplace due to poorer English. Any group which faces scorn or a drop in status will develop a chip on the shoulder so I would think that naturally many Malaysian Chinese do want to prove themselves here. Not just to the meaner Singaporeans they face at work but also to their fellow citizens back home.

c) Impulse Control

Immigrant populations come built-in with a lot of impulse control. Imagine the life the Malaysian student in Senai, who has to wake up at 4.30am to attend a Junior College in Singapore. He probably spends 3-4 hours travelling. He does that because he thinks that a Singaporean education is a ticket to a better future. That kind of willpower and conscientiousness simply cannot be imagined if you are a local. As it often happens on the ground, Singaporeans still do better in school and do well in academic scores, but I bet Malaysian Chinese may do better over the long run because a difficult lifestyle also means more opportunities to develop resilience and grit.

So, what this all mean for us Singaporeans ?

I won't want spread any fear about Malaysian Chinese, half my family is Malaysian, my daughter practically grows up in Johor as well. I also consider the brain gain from Malaysian a primary reason why we are an economic miracle today in South East Asia.

Here's what I think :

a) The advantages of being Malaysian Chinese will not last one generation.

The main reason is that we are not too bad and remain largely kiasu. We already work the longest hours in the world.

Unlike the US, Singaporeans of all races would rank pretty highly with the Triple Package. Singaporean parents always think that their kids are the best and very much more neurotic than our ASEAN neighbours. The kids of Malaysian Chinese are likely to grow up Singaporean and will adopt our values and weaknesses. They will not have the fighting spirit of their parents. Many will end up requiring Adam Khoo's services like Singaporean kids these days.

b) Policy considerations should be made to keep Singaporeans and the country "Insecure" and conscientious.

The Triple Package may have policy implications.

Singaporeans have been recently asking for too many populist measures from the Government. We already have a fairly good healthcare and social security system.

But some changes do bother me like taking out the t-score for PSLE. Why do we want to make our future generations  less competitive ? I think the West gets it wrong, we need to master something before we should be given any self-esteem. The worse thing for Singapore is that our children think that they are really smart but get rolled over by harder working students in China who are better at handling stress.

Stress is necessary for the building of character. Introduce a t-score for University entrance.

I would'nt want to get into the welfare or minimum wage debate but it's quite clear where I stand on this debate.

c) Fight the Philistine culture

The rise of a materialistic philistine culture is also something we need to guard against. My observation of the Singapore middle class is that as hardworking as it is, it has never developed a culture of intellectualism. Even intelligent Singaporeans do not focus on ideas, they focus on material goods and things. There are over 400 Maseratis in Singapore but not a single Nobel prize.

Impulse control is cultivated by a culture which promotes Intellectualism as you need patience and dedication to develop a philosophy and outlook on life. The Patek Phillipe watch just needs a bank loan.

And we've chosen the quick fix as a way to measure status in our society.

Influence of Dungeons & Dragons on my investment style.

The daddy of all role-playing games has turned 40 lately.

I'd just like to share the influence Dungeons & Dragons have on my life.

I picked up D&D when I was 10. I started out with the D&D Action figures by LJN ( I used to have Warduke the Fighter and Strongheart the Paladin ) and was told by a senior in my primary school that there's such a thing as a role-playing game. Being a spoiled brat that I was when I was a kid, I was able to got to a place called Leisure Craft at Orchard Point to buy the 1st Edition Player's Handbook ( Yes, I started with AD&D, BECMI is for wusses ). It took me a while to really understand the system and I was only able to start DMing a game for my classmates a year later ( I think it was a Dragonlance module ).

Here's what D&D taught me :

a) Delayed gratification can get you anything you want. 

I remember when Oriental Adventures came out, Leisure Craft charged a whopping $32 a copy. Even though I was a spoiled brat who had $15 pocket money a week, I had to starve myself for 3 weeks before I could get it.     

I think this trained my willpower to delay my spending. At my current stage, I can delay gratification for decades.

b) Arbitrage and Securitization is awesome.

I remember trying to get hold of a Dungeon Master's guide was problematic as I already had the Player's handbook, Unearthed Arcana and the Monster Manual. I suddenly has a bright idea.

My dad's friend who was an old coot, collects copies of Playboy magazine. Somehow, being a corrupt kid, I asked him and he give me a copy because I was curious about human sexuality. My idea was to cut out pictures of the nudes and I sold them individually to kids from Whitley Secondary school (which as next door to my secondary school). I remember getting $15 for a pic of Madonna ( yeah, she did porn ! ) I think my senior in St Johns caught me making the trade but thankfully nobody reported me. 

At the tender age of 13, I was able to make a riskless gain (arbitrage) by splitting an asset in multiple components ( securitization ). If I was'nt caught by my uniformed group, I think I would be with Goldman Sachs today.

Of course, on hindsight, vintage pics of Madonna naked would be worth a lot more $15 these days. But what's a naked picture of Madonna compared to brilliance which was the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide ?

NB:  And that senior who caught me might have become an auditor, go figure. 

c) All the advanced maths and vocabulary for the SATs at the age of 10

D&D is not a game for dumb kids. I learnt about the bell curve from the DMG and basic probability from rolling polyhedral dice. By the time I did my SATs during my JC days, I was able to get 96+% for my SAT Verbals. Needless to say, having advanced mathematics allowed me to ace my S papers and even got to an IT Olympiad training team. 

Eventually, maths was critical to passing CFA 2. 

d) Dividends investing

I was instinctively able to grasp dividends investing because of D&D trolls. You see, trolls are monsters who regenerate. If you strike a troll and did less damage than its regeneration, it is the same as not doing dmaage to it. I always thought that trolls would particularly like getting dividends because if the incoming cashflow exceeds the damage or your expenses, you will never be defeated by the monster called Modern Living. 

Just be careful of fire or acid attacks.

e) What the rules did not explicitly say that you can't do.

The most important lesson I learnt from D&D was much later during my JC days. I joined a group of pretty insane players and there were all sort of crazy RPG antics which was suited to a different kind of blog. One wizard Stoned to Flesh dungeon walls, fireballed the flesh and told the fighters to eat their way through their rooms. He also cast an Item spell on various undead creatures to shrink them into a cloth-like state and threw the resulting "skeleton-dolls" on party enemies. The druid fire-trapped his mouth and bit his enemies. The fighter has boots of flying and attacked monsters by dropping a Daern's Instant Fortress (10d10 damage, like Mjolnir ) on them. 

In between game sessions, my fellow players told me that one way to play D&D is to simply follow the rules. But they played the game differently. They did things which were not explicitly prohibited by the rules. Very often, they interpreted the rules in hilarious ways. ( eg. Any closeable item can be firetrapped. A mouth is a closeable item. )

My DM called them rules-rapists, they went further than any rules lawyer from other RPG groups. 

I think playing D&D with this group had the most profound influence on my life.

• There is no law in Singapore that say that Engineer's can't write a bestselling non-fictional work.
• There is no law in Singapore that say that you can't create a perpetual cashflow to replace your living expenses.
• There is no law against 8.5% portfolio if your risk appetite can handle it.
• There is no law against reinvesting 150% of earned income to ramp up your cash flow. 
• There is no law that says that you can't work and earn one income and supplement your expenses from another source of cash flow. 
• There is no law in Singapore that say that you can quit the rat race at 39 to reinvent yourself. 

Thank you Mr.15hourworkweek !

Sometimes, the effectiveness of one's writings and financial ideas should best be explained by a reader.

This blogger read my first book, took my $100,000 challenge, and completed it before the age of 28.

He now runs a much more successful blog.

http://www.my15hourworkweek.com/2014/01/23/growing-my-tree-of-prosperity/

Note : My books are no longer on sale at local bookstores. You can buy it from me by writing to me at chrisngwaichung@hotmail.com. In a few week's time I will open an e-commerce website to sell my remaining stock.

Dun Pretend - Outcomes matter.

Another interesting insight from the Harvard Grant Study is what's NOT a significant contributing factor for longevity ( Living beyond 85 ) was found to be as follows :

• Low cholesterol.
• Heavy exercise.
• Lack of obesity.

In fact, having an advanced degree or  a happy childhood is a greater contributing factor to attain longevity.

But I just came back from a run. I ran for about 30 minutes because I had developed a headache after 3 hours of statistical programming with R. Running produces endorphins which can eliminate headaches.

There are other reasons why I run and have one fibre meal a day, my blood sugar control is poor and medication is no longer sufficient to keep things in control. If my condition gets worse, I will develop a vascular problem which will eventually affect my chances of living to 85. ( Three vascular conditions and I am not expected to see my 70th birthday )

Exercise is an area in my life that I'm pretty sure  I know why I do what I do.

In other areas, I am less confident of the outcome I want.

I now have the means to retire, but at this point of time, I am as busy as before trying to pick up all the latest technologies I missed out while I was working. The outcome I want is still unknown.

Some people run to deal with boredom. That's a valid outcome but there are better ways of dealing with that. Others run because they want to look good, although I think that requires much more vigorous exercises.

The key takeaway is that if you want to do anything, know what of outcome you want to achieve. The thing that you do, might not be significant in meeting your objective over a long run.

If Life is a board game, here are the victory conditions.

As an extremely competitive person at school and at work, I have been criticized for treating my real life as a game.

Engaging in gaming behaviour means that you live you life to win. Because we live in a modern society where no one has any incentive to tell you the rules of how to live your life, I've made up my own victory conditions. ( D&D players do a lot of that )

In school, my objective was a First Class Honors with the highest possible ECA record that I could reasonably attain. Much later at work, I basically just kept count of my dollars and wanted to be the first to have my investment income exceed my earned income. There were all sorts of other victory conditions I made up for myself like start a family, get an advanced degree, take the largest number of exams in a given year while holding a full time job ( I think I hit 21 in 2003, dunno why I bothered ).

Well, apparantly,  it looks like I might not be playing it right.

In the book Triumphs of Experience : The Men of the Harvard Grant Study has an interesting set of outcomes that denotes a flourishing state.

I think these sets of rules are a balanced set of victory conditions for the Game of Life.

Here is the list. Score one point if you achieve anyone of this when you reach 85 :

a) Included in Who's Who in America. ( I wonder what's the equivalent here )
b) Earning income in the Study's top quartile ( Household income is about  $13,000 in 2012 / $4,000 per member in SG although the original study targeted high flyers. )
c) Low in psychological distress.
d) Success and enjoyment in work, love and play since age 65.
e) Good subjective health at 75.
f) Good subjective and objective physical and mental health at 80.
g) Mastery of Ericksonion task of Generativity ( You can nurture and empathize with an adolescent or child who is unrelated to you. )
h) Availability of social support other than wife and kids between ages 60 and 75.
i) Good marriage between 60 and 85.
j) Close to kids between ages 60 and 75.

I think overall these are very balanced victory conditions compared to what Asian society heaps on us (I'm quite glad that a Porsche and a Patek Philipe watch is not in this list ). Most people score 3 on this list. If you can score 5 and above it means that you've lived quite a good life.

Looks like I'll be thinking up ways to change my style of living moving forward.,

Systems vs Goals - Lessons from Scott Adams.

Scott Adams' How to Fail at almost everything and Still Win Big is a book which puts him ahead as a self-help author. His book is chock-full of good, realistic and down to earth advice which is relevant for American and International audiences.

I'm only going to discuss one important lesson from the creator of Dilbert.

Systems trump Goals.

This is a very unique and interesting idea.

Scott proposes that goals are not as good as systems. Goals are a one-shot objective. The guys who take my $300,000 oath will position their goals as follows - Save $300,000 or never get married. The limitation of such goals is that while the goal is not achieved, you are considered a failure ( and you remain celibate, tough luck). After a goal is achieved, you experience a moment of triumph but the goal ceases to exist, and you lose a source of motivation..

Systems are superior to goals. A system is action-based and not outcome-based, although actions are keyed to meet certain outcomes. A system succeeds the moment you execute on it and rewards you with a high when you execute it properly regardless of outcome.

Guys who want to take my $300,000 oath should create a system which works for them such as :

a) Limit expenses to $300 a week.
b) Save 80% of earned income to a portfolio of REITs and stocks which yield at least 8% with sustainable free cash flow.
c) Farm the entire bonus into the stock market.
d) Farm all increments into the stock market.
e) Ignore market sentiment and keep searching for counters which meet this criteria. ( They are quite hard to find )
f) Date casually and look for a life partner in a school or place of personal development. Ask at least 2 girls out for a date in these environment.
g) Eschew single bars, salsa classes, hipster cafes or areas of frivolous pursuits as these places may not yield the proper life partner.

Once a system is created, every cycle ensures that you will get closer to your final objective. You succeed every month when you can farm 80% into the stock market. You also give yourself a pat on the back whenever you meet someone in a writing/ accounting/ finance/ language class. While the system may not get you to $300,000, if you can sustain this over a few years, it will improve your net worth substantially.

You may even like this system so much, you can carry on with it even after meeting your target. ( But you should'nt carry on dating different women after marriage, not good for your health. )

The mouth speaks, the testicles feel good : The Power of Negative Predictions.

Recently the Government refuted an article that predicts the Singapore economy going along the same way as  Iceland as it crashes due to the various bubbles which are already forming right now as we speak. I was asked for my opinion as to whether the situation might actually come true.

My basic answer is - I don't know. But having spent some time in the public sector, I am confident that the government will react to this prediction. As to whether the government overreacts ( I am always inclined to think that they do, given my personal experience ), the jury is still out. I am inclined to think that MAS has  acted years before the article to start cooling the property market.

But my blog is not so much about the greater economy but about what, at a micro-level, people can act when faced with a similar situation.

Similar to Philistines are a class a fellow citizens that many of us are not particularly inclined to hang out with.

These are folks who are full of negative predictions.

You know these guys, if you are studying for an exam, they will predict that you'll get a C-. If you participate in an ECA, they will say that it is not of practical use in the workplace. Because we are such a competition society, some people think that by predicting a negative outcome on something, another person can be brought down a few rungs.

As the Hokkien saying goes "Chui3 Gong4 Lam3 Par1 Song4" - The mouth speaks, the testicles feel good.

According to these very insecure people, making a negative prediction does not incur a cost, if you do actually fail, they get to say "I told you so."

Let me tell you a little secret ?

I love negative predictions.

They are the fundamental building blocks of my success. A negative prediction let you prepare for failure. They allow the person to do another reality check on their goals and ambitions. Perhaps you did not account for time management when you signed up for more public speaking. Did you back-test your portfolio strategy before you invested your hard earned cash ?

To sweeten the pay-off, the negative predictor will eat his words if you succeed, that is a very powerful motivation for me. You should make it a point to exult in your triumph against such folks, nothing psychically damages them as much as your personal success.

For me, the flabbergasted look from a frenemy is the most beautiful thing to behold. I think it feels better than seeing Serina Wee.

Of course, since we live in a very competitive Asian society, you will never defeat all of these people. Their faces changes but you will always have people who will predict your next big failed attempt to do something. But I think a large part of personal success comes from confronting your critics and making each feedback personal.

You need to get angry and personal over things if you want to be significant in any pursuit.

For a guy who has set-up a family, built a career to retire before 40, I still get plenty of negative predictions in my current state.

a) People predict boredom in early retirement.

That's what enrolling in an online University is all about.There are multiple projects in the pipeline ( many involve programming ) and the escape plan to pick up part-time work in 6 months if "retirement" does not pan out. I can always write my next book, and I've not even started calling our all those friends on FB for lunch.

b) Some people think I will gain weight

To prevent that I am eating less and introducing one fibre meal a day. I am also targeting to exercise everyday. Without a day job, your willpower reserves can be channeled completely into keeping healthy.

c) Increase in interest rates will drive me out of retirement.

No one said this to me yet, so I conjured an inner critic and made this one up. All investors will need to monitor their interest rates. If it goes up, not only will it impact your mortgage payments, your REITs will have to channel their rental income into their loan payments. You'll be hit by NAV loss and lower investment income. The way out of this is a day job some exploration of part-time options will take place once I get a good rest.

Wanna retire early ? Don't be a Philistine !

I was trying to find the perfect word to explain why despite living in one of the friendliest tax regimes on Planet Earth, many Singaporeans still struggle with modern serfdom.

This word is Philistine.

Singapore is full of Philistines.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as follows :

a :  a person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values
b :  one uninformed in a special area of knowledge

Philistines are everywhere in Singapore. These are the folks who get upset when someone else buys a car or goes on a holiday. Of course, they will eagerly buy a car or go on a holiday once they get the funds to do so, often with the aim of inflicting psychic damage on fellow Philistines.

Generally speaking, local Philistines do not contribute to the knowledge economy, money is largely made by hustling, which explains the disdain for intellectual values. They are also too lazy to develop any special area of knowledge.

But interestingly enough, Philistines are not dumb - anyone who knows their brands well can't possibly be stupid.

Philistines miss out on two key things when it comes to personal finance:

a) The pursuit of material goods reduces your financial capital which allows you to escape from the rat-race.

b) It is intellectual pursuits which provide the knowledge to really thrive in this economy. i.e. The jury is still out on how Big Data will revolutionize business functions like sales, marketing or HR.

Even though I am retired, I generally don't give a hoot about the guy who drives a BMW and wears a Patek Phillipe. I actively discourage consumerism, although as an investor, I am like a vampire that feeds on the consumption by others.

Introduce to me a 40-something year old geek who understands MapReduce and can build his own Hadoop cluster and he will gain my envy and respect.  I might even buy him a kopi to tap on his expertise.

My advice to folks who aim for early retirement is to eliminate your Philistine friends and start looking for intellectuals to replace them. It's easier to live a non-materialist life if you are surrounded by people who respect ideas more than material belongings.

Settling into a retirement lifestyle...

After spending my first week populating my timetable, I've finally settled down into a slower retirement lifestyle.

My day today began with a brisk jog because I've recently been waking up tired. The jog managed to release some endorphins in my brain and gave me a high before I had my breakfast. After that I settled down in Woodlands library to attack all the quizzes in the "Computing for Data Analysis" course in Coursera.

I think so far, a combination of physical exercise, programming study and reading will allow me to spend my retirement with relatively low personal expenses. Beginning tomorrow, i will be attending a series of Finance/Tech related talks to find out what the rest of the world is thinking about.

Anyway, let's talk about constraints today.

When i retired one of the things I wanted to do is live with some constraints so that whatever I'm planning becomes sustainable :

a) No computer games.

Initially I used to dream of wasting my time playing MMORPGs upon retirement but now I think I'm getting too old for that. By restricting myself from games, I have to force myself to seek alternatives for mental stimulation and flow, which led to MOOCs being the new MMORPGS. Scoring quizzes, getting technical certificates and benchmarking against students internationally, is not too different from killing monsters and taking their treasure.

b) No more taxis, restaurants, weekend movies and other large expenses.

This constraint is something I made up until by first gush of dividend payments this March. I have a reasonable dividend flow of about $24k a quarter, if I spend the first 3 months on austerity, I would have a  cash hoard which I can use to fund my courses and condominium renovations for the rest of 2014. So far, keeping expenses low is really easy if you do not have a day job. Your willpower can be used solely to keep expenses down.

c) No travel... yet

This constraint is practical. My wife is on a new job and has yet to accumulate enough leave, as such I will skip travel for at least 45 days and, even if I travel, it would be to KL for my next book buying spree. There are certainly plenty of opportunities to see the world but I want to get fit so that I can take long walks and endure the "hardship" of living in a cheap hostel.

There are some projects I will be holding in reserve, I would like to setup an online store to sell my books sometime next month, thereafter I think there is room to learn a new language. If I get fitter over the next few weeks, I should be able to enroll in a self-defence class.



 

How rhetoric can be used to diagnose the problems with PAP.

One of the constraints I built into my retirement plan is that the learning should never stop. My learning program will mirror a liberal arts program, something which I was unable to pursue in my youth. Right now, I'm trying to teach myself rhetoric by day and R programming by night.

After some basic grounding in Rhetoric, I think I am getting some insight into the recent problems faced by PAP.

Rhetoric is the ancient art of persuasion, Aristotle divides it into the three parts of Ethos, Logos and Pathos. By understanding the three components of persuasion we can look into the PAP's strengths and weaknesses.

a) Ethos

Ethos is an appeal to authority. When someone has ethos, this person not only has a stake in politics but is also qualified for the role. PAP candidates have usually strong ethos, coming with an almost perfect academic record and has enough knowledge to run a constituency. The PAP's weakness is that it's difficult to field a candidate that's vested in the interests of middle-class voters as many believe that PAP chooses elite candidates that really cannot understand the problems faced by many Singaporeans today.

b) Logos

Logos is a measure of logical appeal. This is where PAP reigns supreme. No matter how you look at government policies, PAP is the candidate of choice to push unpopular but logical policies to be accepted by the electorate. Having a policy based on statistics and logic ensures that it's watertight and immune to attacks by the opposition.

The having the strength of logos is also it's weakness. Appeal well to logic comes at the expense of being human. Which brings us to the next point...

c) Pathos

Pathos, or emotional appeal, is the PAP's Achilles heel. PAP has lost its emotional appeal which made it the dominant party in the 1960s. PAP candidates are largely drawn from the upper echelons of the Administrative service, spent most of their lives being celebrated for their academic achievements. These candidates are then pushed in front of the people and made to show that they understand the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Every remark which the people deems insensitive is then magnified a thousand fold in social media.

Fortunately, I have some ethos of my own. My time in NTUC and a government agency actually allows me to offer some ideas to beef up the PAP in future elections.

This is what I think should happen to turn the tide :

Launch an NTUC Scholarship ( eg. The Devan Nair Industrial Relations Scholarship Award )

Having worked in both NTUC and a government agency, I will make the conclusion that NTUC Industrial Relations Officers have way more EQ than many Administrative OfficersI knew.

Yes - Senior civil servants tend to lack Pathos.

The PAP should tap the Labour Movement for its future generation of leaders.

For emotional appeal to work, the government needs to invent a scholarship which is heavily biased towards candidates who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. These candidates will then be offered free local university education and be bonded with labor unions for up to 4 years.

By sifting candidates based on grit, tenacity, perseverance, and to a lesser extent academics, the PAP can slowly build a cohort of candidates which appeal to the middle and working classes.

Quick initial thoughts on life without a day job.

The reality of having no day job has not started to sink in yet as my first weekday without employment was actually spent quite productively. I spent the morning in NUS certifying my transcripts and the afternoon helping my in-laws with an errand.

For the first time in years, I had decent sleep. My Fitbit registers about 5.5 hours of sleep on a normal weekday when I needed to go to work the next day, yesterday I had the luxury of having 7.5 hours of sleep and great rainy weather to complement my first full night of rest.

When I woke up I had grains and cereal for breakfast, something which I hated in the past because they took too long to chew and made me late for work. Now, even though I hate cereal, I had the whole morning to finish my breakfast so there's no excuse anymore. This meant more energy for the rest of the day, and no carbohydrate-induced coma after lunch.

Lunch was also different. In the past, I would choose any stall with a short queue and always came off thinking that food in Singapore tastes bad and is overpriced. Today. I went to a hawker centre and deliberate went for the food with the longest queue and had probably had one of the best Wanton Mee in Singapore for $3 ( It was at Clementi hawker centre ).

I also saved on coffee, as I no longer require a shot of caffeine to concentrate on my approval papers.

I think the insight I had for today is that a hidden side of Singapore exists once you escape the rat race :

So long as you are not competing for resources with the rest of the corporate world, transportation rides are leisurely, food and even movies can be cheap.  

Heather Chua is wrong ! All RGS girls should absolutely fall for ITE guys !

Once the storm has calmed down on Heather Chua, cool heads will prevail and she will be revealed for being a troll who is playing the rich-poor gap card to get attention from the Internet.

There are certainly many unions which people will support, much like the way some football fans love or hate Manchester United :

- Twilight fans wage war over whether Bella should go for Edward or Jacob.
- Hunger games fans support the not-so-fun-to-pronounce Peetniss union ( Peeta/Katniss )
- Mediacorp fans also gush with excitement over the Joanne Peh/Qi Yuwu union.

As for me, I think there is a great value and logic in the RGS girl / ITE guy union. So if Heather Chua is right and there is indeed an RGS girl who married in ITE guy, I'll be cheering them on !

It's something policy makers really think about.

Right now, i think Singapore still believes in traditional Asian matches, where an "A" man is expected to marry a "B" woman, a "B" man is expected to marry a "C" woman, etc... Such an arrangement will result in an overwhelming supply of "A" women like those from RGS and the misunderstood ITE guys who get an unfair rating because of the elitist society that we belong to.

An RGS woman is intelligent and completely capable of looking herself, does she really need an intellectual powerhouse like an RI-guy or the swaggering wealth of the the ACS guy ? She's probably smart and rich enough to take of herself.

Here's why ITE guys should be given fair consideration:

a) ITE guys start work earlier and can start compounding their savings at a younger age.

The problem with advanced degrees is that you start work late. While you have a higher pay, you will have fewer years to compound your savings. ITE certificate guys start work immediately after NS at about 21. Compare that with a medical doctor who can only get their first paycheck at age 26.

b) ITE guys can expect better increments due to the political sea change in Singapore.

Have you wondered why plumbers and electricians do so well in Australia and England ? These economies are not as open to globalisation as Singapore is. Our inflow of foreign talent keeps the folks in services related fields low. As our electorate is starting to reveal their fangs in the last election, I think that blue collar work and services oriented jobs will receive a larger proportion of pay increments in the past as foreign workers are sent packing. So it's highly probable that an electrician can have a better increment than a magazine editor in the next few years.

c) Opportunity costs to have a single breadwinner in the family is low.

A professional couple is always struggling to balance work with family. If you disagree with my points (a) and (b). the ITE guy can quit his job and start doing stuff to keep the family running. If his pay is low relative to his wife, it only means that it the opportunity cost of quitting his job is lower. If a RGS doctor marry an RI/ACS lawyer, the opportunity cost for one spouse to quit is too high and child rearing duties normally become outsourced to the maid.

I think with that in mind, perhaps policy makers should really start to address the oversupply of highly educated women and blue collar men. Here are my proposals :

a) Have special subsidized dating events for RGS women and ITE guys.

While the policy of having SDN run events with the private sector comes from a good place, tax payers money should be channeled to where it can help the most. RGS-ITE couples can run these events and talk about how to make their union a success.

b) Provide an actual cash award for such couples.

In countries like Qatar, men are financially rewarded for marrying locals. Why not credit $50,000 to such couples for a start. I think the impact on our budget will be minimal.

In summary, I think part of the reason why people are hurt by Heather Chua is that Singapore is truly elitist. While people get upset with Heather Chua, no one has actually stepped forward with a logical reason for RGS women to marry ITE guys and propose policy interventions.

Some thoughts on my last day at work.

Today is my last day of work.

Officially, at age 39, I am retired. But in practice, I expect take a good rest and then I will decide what I will do for the rest of my life. At the moment, my quarterly dividends will pay my bills and mortgages, something which my investment income has been doing for sometime.

At this stage in my life, it's probably not wise to stop working. Even if the bills are being paid, work is a great way to meet people and interact with friends. Work also keeps my mind sharp. What I am currently quite sure about is that I will not be pursuing jobs that I've been doing for the past 15 years. My jobs tends to be very procedural or bureaucratic in nature with very little technical expertise required to perform them. Two more years and I would have lost all my industrial know-how. The 90 minute commute in each direction is also quite draining.

In the short term, my priorities are follows :

a) Keep healthy and improve my diet.

As much as I hate to, not having to rush to work means that I can take my own sweet time to finish my bowl of oatmeal. I also have a Fitbit to track my activity to ensure that I am at least twice as active as before. And retirees also have that rare luxury of 8 hours of sleep everyday. (My Fitbit tells me that for my recent working years, I've been clocking only 6 hours of sleep a day. )

b) Develop myself as a person.

Being an IT engineer who has to track market movements everyday takes a toll on your humanity. Retiring gives me a rare privilege of really examining my life. One of my personal disappointments in life was missing out on Cornell University scholarship during my A level days due to my poor ECA and CL2 results. This is a great time to get acquainted with the liberal arts again. I'm starting with the personal study of Rhetoric. These days are plenty of web resources and library books which I can use to improve myself even though being self -taught is hardly equivalent to being taught in an Ivy League University.

c) Update my tech skills.

As an investor, I need to keep up with my technical skills. Analytical tools like the R statistical language are exoskeletons of the mind. I'm going to spend my evenings attending a MOOC to pick up enough R to crunch financial data-sets. Right now, I compute my financial ratios by hand and key them into a spreadsheet. Perhaps proficiency in a statistical programming language can help me with better investment decisions. I would also be trolling Bloomberg for free classes on their platform. There are also plenty of things about the tech world which I'm curious about, like Hadoop and DevOps.

Long term, I have not decided what I want to do. One possibility is to return to school, another is to start a business and a third option is to seek part-time work as a lecturer. I will do some travel and engage in my hobbies before I make a decision.

In the meantime, you can expect some interesting articles to be put up on this blog.
 

We should treat the $300,000 oath as relationship advice instead of financial advice.

Over the holiday season, a lot folks asked me how I derived the $300,000 as a target asset value a single Singaporean male should accumulate before he makes the decision to get married.

The primary idea behind $300,000 is that this amount that could generate a minimalist lifestyle to sustain a single male such that he can attempt to switch to a better job without having a ready job offer in hand. As a portfolio of REITs, Business trusts and dividend yielding stocks can be designed to yield about 8% in the current market, the $300,000 portfolio is expected to generate about $2,000 in monthly income. I estimate that a single male who has the discipline to generate $2,000 in passive income in his mid-thirties probably would not need more than $1,500 a month to live on and can even save about $500 a month to keep his portfolio growing.

After a discussion with other folks, perhaps you might think that 8% is too much of a stretch for a portfolio. As it turns out SGX has a decent number of stocks which yield about 6% but have a lot more potential for dividend growth. So with a different portfolio mix, our happy single bachelor can expect $1,500 a month which grows at the inflation rate without a need for reinvestment.

After some further thought over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that the $300,000 oath is good financial advice but works better as relationship advice.

Tyler Cowen of the Marginal Revolution fame wrote an article on Singapore's low birth rate which you can find here :

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/12/why-does-singapore-have-such-a-low-birth-rate.html

In this article, Tyler explains that ethnic Chinese birth rates are low in Singapore compared to Singaporean ethnic Malay birth rates or even ethnic Chinese birth rates in Malaysia. He attributes it largely to a combination of the successful education system in Singapore which gave women more opportunities in the workforce but the persistence of traditional values which makes ethnic Chinese women still want to marry up. This creates an oversupply of educated single women and uneducated single men who will never marry each other.

Tyler's epic conclusion is that Singaporean Chinese men simply need to be more confident about themselves.

So this is where the $300,000 oath comes into the picture :

a) Dating a Singaporean Chinese women in your 20s is challenging.

I have experienced this myself along with the tons of single men in my clique.

Dating a Singaporean Chinese woman while  in your 20s is exhausting and extremely damaging to your ego.

Some women keep a running list of priorities in their head and will cancel dates with you if a better candidate calls them out. Others who know that they are young and pretty will act like a princess and expect you to bend over backwards to accommodate them in most engagements. Most are not playing for keeps and will want to shop around until they have built their own careers.

By taking the $300,000 oath, you spend your 20s doing what you should be doing in the first place - accumulating wealth, clawing up the corporate ladder, and getting advanced degrees.

b) $300,000 in your pocket puts you higher up on her priority list.

There is something different about men in their mid-30s with $2,000 passive income every month. They are passionate at work and have the worldly experience to back it up. They are conversant in the world economy and have a proven track record in investments.

For lack of a better term, they ooze sex appeal and their star is expected to rise further.

A financially independent man in their mid-30s, ceteris paribus, better than a Gen-Y or Millenial boyfriend and can not only act as a companion to a woman, but also a wise mentor to the 20-something career woman.

So expect to be upgraded to the top of her list when you start opening up to better dating ideas.

This means fewer cancelled dates and less ruined movie tickets in the future.

c) You become God's gift to women at your 30s age group.

At this point,we need to be realistic, not every 30-something with $300,000 is going to attract a women in her 20s. Singaporean women in their 20s look great and have standards and some of you guys may be intensely introverted, lack facial symmetry, devoid of a sense of humor or not "evolutionarily-advantaged".

At this stage, have no fear, for there are legions of successful, clever and capable women in their mid-30s who are waiting to receive you with open arms !

It takes a very wise and capable man to accept a highly educated woman in her mid-30s. They generally won't fight with you over trivial affairs and are very pragmatic and realistic when planning a wedding. They are good dates and make supportive spouses.

So there you have it.

The $300,000 oath for a Singaporean Single male makes decent financial sense but in actual fact, it forms the foundation to having more confidence when engaging with members of the opposite sex.

Tyler Cowen talks about the need for confidence.

I am showing you how to buy it.

The hogwash that is 成家立业.

You don't need to spend 4 years in ACS to know that most Chinese proverbs are hogwash.

After failing every Chinese paper since leaving Secondary school, I have developed a natural tendency to be skeptical when someone tosses a mysterious proverb at me.

Today I will discuss the proverb 成家立业 or to settle down and establish a career. A variant of this proverb, duly expanded to six characters, interprets this as an act of settling down before establishing a career.

Chinese culture and language has a history spanning thousands of years. If we really think about the context for the creation of these proverbs, it does not take a lot of thought to know that they probably came about when China was still an agrarian economy.

In such a situation, a farmer should prioritise family before career because children act as extra pairs of hands in a farm. Having children earlier provides more cheap labour to be able to harvest more crops and earn enough to expand the farm or even have more children.

Fast forward to this modern day, Modern Chinese balk at the idea of starting families before they are ready to do so. Children requires more than 2 decades of nurturing before they can contribute to a knowledge-based economy.

But because folks naturally like the idea of starting a family and having children, they don't really spend a lot of time to think about the concept of readiness when it comes to having a family.

Yes, you can get married in your early thirties, the Government even wants you to do this. There are many banks who want you to get a mortgage along with that car. You are young, fabulous and upwardly mobile. You are worth it. YOLO !

Early marriages with a house, children and a car means financial liabilities in your 40s.

You would'nt feel it in your thirties because you are open-minded, sharp, dynamic and paid relatively lowly in the workforce so managers will tend to leave you alone.

When you get to your forties, your actions will bite you the ass. You need a high income to sustain your liabilities. As you have school-going kids, you hunker down and take whatever the corporate world tosses at you but you are no longer as fast as the younger guys in their 30s or as cheap as foreign talent.

A society with debt laden men in their 40s who willingly take anything the corporate world tosses at them will only create a management caste that would not relent on the workforce. Managers will be able to commit wanton acts of abuse as they know that for your salary, you will accept any terms the company has to offer. Don't believe me ? If your office as mid-life workers, go have lunch with them and find out how many actually feel that they are prisoners in the current job roles that they have ?

One of the ideas that Authorities would like to spread in Singapore is that car ownership should not be an aspiration. Hence COEs inflate the value of a car to about $150,000 or more. Cars are a luxury and have no place in the 5 Cs. You need to be very exceptional to be a car owner.

If you follow this train of thought and agree with the Authorities, then you will be able to accept my bitter realization and come upon this conclusion:

a) A wife, who has a right to co-own a flat with you and can potentially have your child, is not an aspiration.
b) A child, which cost upward of $1,000,000 to raise,  is also not an aspiration.

Like cars, a family is a luxury. You need to be very exceptional to be a family man.

立业成家

Based on my opinion, this should be the Mantra moving forward. Put career first, resolve all your mandatory expenses by land/equity ownership before moving on to start a family. If you can secure your family's basic survival by capital ownership and passive investment income, no company or abusive manager can put you in chains.

If you are a young male who wants to take on the world based on your own terms, start by imposing a Certificate of Marriage Entitlement (COME) of $300,000 on yourself. Work hard until this target is reached, then determine if you are willing to delay financial freedom by starting a family.

You'll never know where this approach to life will take you in the future.

Relationship advice for the Single, Young and Male Investor (SYMI).

Conventional wisdom on love and marriage would be as follows :

a) Date while you are in University.
b) Get your degree.
c) Work for a few years.
d) Get married.
e) Get a home mortgage.
f) Get a car.
e) Work together towards kids and retirement.

This pre-packaged plan comes as part of the Singapore Dream.

If you had followed the plan earlier, you will become like the hundreds of colleagues I know who feel stuck in their jobs, their companies becoming prisons which they live in. These employees have mouths to feed at home and mortgages to pay and if they do not have the relevant career agility to move on, they fall prey to poor management.

The savvy, young investing male, replete with market knowledge, can play a better game.

The playbook I propose should be as follows :

a) While in University aggressive play for the best grades. This is the Hunger Games, may the odds be ever in your favour.

b) Take on as many management roles in your CCAs you participate in. This is the most consistent way to score a big Bank or MNC position. You only want a bank, consulting firm, prestigious tech firm like Apple or Google or a DJIA counter business. ( This gives the best odds of 10% increments for first 10 years. )

c) Work overtime and aggressively save and invest with a target of $300,000 to ensure that you can live within your investment income. This may require a savings rate of 75%. ( Too bad, live as a undergraduate for the next 10 years. If you are lonely, sign up for a MOOC. My date in my late 20s was the CFA exams.  )

d) Date casually in your 20s, but start playing for keeps in your 30s. You are likely to hit your target in your mid-30s. Find someone who shares the same values as you.

e) Don't make a commitment to someone until you hit $300,000 in portfolio size. Odds are you will only get married around mid-thirties.

g) Start building your spouse's financial independence by channelling three incomes into her portfolio. ( Your's, her's and your portfolio's )

h) Once you are both free, have a kid and take on a mortgage. (This is starting to sound like a strategy for Starcraft II )

i) Work to clear your mortgage, kid expenses are not too large and you should be able to get the investment income to sustain a child before the kid gets into play-school on two incomes. ( Actually 4 incomes by now. )

j) Thanks to the power of compounding, you two will be able to reach the point where every expense can be paid via your investment income sometime before 45.

h) If you and your spouse feel like it, retire. Otherwise, enjoy your career.

The consequence of this alternative play-book is harsh - Don't accumulate $300,000, don't get married so naturally this is not something you'll see in government ads.

The problem is not so much being stuck with a lousy spouse but do you want to spend 10+ hours in a workplace and be miserable for 50% of your life ? $300,000 portfolio let's a single guy choose the workplace he wants.

The other advantage of this playbook is that many young males do not realize how attractive they become once they hit financial independence in their mid-30s. You are worldly and you've proven yourself in the corporate market.  Grabbing a young 27 year-old wife from a Gen-Y herbivore hipster is like grabbing a lollipop from a baby - Just remember to shout YOLO! while you are at it.

Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and speed.