Do not succumb to greed

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