Jeff Bezos - the Richest Man in the World.

The world’s richest man. That’s Jeff Bezos. Net worth around US$200b. The stuff that dreams are made of. But how did he get there in 27 years? By sheer will, intellect and speed of course. 

His unauthorised biographer, Brad Stone, has written two books about him. His article about the space cowboy (Bezos is retiring to embark on space exploration) surmises the techno-legend as one with “towering intellect, along with a notable deficit of empathy and fear of stasis.” 

Brad describes Amazon as this: “Today, the company is a kind of corporate apeirogon - a shape with infinite sides - extending into new industries on a regular basis, terrifying potential competitors and sending blasts of anxiety across the antitrust establishment.”

With an apeirogon, you can never visionalise its shape because it is always expanding. It multiplies at all sides, and that is how Bezos worked his way up to the top of the human achievement pyramid, enjoying unrivalled wealth. 

His work philosophy is simple. He once told journalist Walter Isaacson that “doing things at high speed, that’s the best defence against the future. If you are leaning away from the future, the future is going to win every time.”

Imagine that, you benchmark your growth not just against getting ahead of competitors, but against a future where things have yet to be invented. You therefore create a tomorrow, that is, a world you are the first to colonise and also the first to reap all the profits that comes with first-mover advantage.

That is Bezos’ philosophy, very much like that of Facebook’s Zuckerberg’s motto - “Move fast and break things.” 

For Bezos, he has coined this term - “Day 2” company. This is what he wrote to his shareholders in 2016 explaining what he meant. “Day 2 is stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”

Bezos’ Day 1 concept of growth and innovation is the rising of many new dawns, each one like the side of an apeirogon, forever-expanding to capture brave new lands and uncharted terrestrial terrains at the speed of creative light. 

But alas, in chasing a future travelling at the breakneck speed, there is a cost attached to it. Brad wrote: -

“As the fortunes of the company and its founder have increased, their public images have taken a beating. As recent news reports show, Amazon’s workers are often pushed to the limit by arduous goals, arbitrarily changing rules and algorithmic masters, which seem to have little tolerance for human frailty.”

“”Colleagues new and old testify that he has many talents, including a superhuman ability to focus on disparate issues and get to the bottom of complex problems. But empathy was never one of them. "If you're not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out," a former executive once told me. "And if you're good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground."”

Lesson? Just one. 

Bezos’ retirement plan to travel in his Blue Origin rocket into suborbital space is the perfect metaphor of his apeirogon-like success. While the world below looks on, Bezos is blasting his way to the unbounded universe. 

First, he conquered the market. Second, he created the future. Now, he is exploring space, if not colonising planets; just in case the good old mother earth happens to heave her last breath from climate change. 

On the jaded backs of many, but no doubt duly rewarded, Bezos has rode them all. Each one up to par was given six-impossible-things-to-do-before breakfast, and like one brick after another, each task assigned and completed goes to building a rocket empire ruled by one at the top. 

At the end of the day, when the sun sets and a new dawn rises, Bezos is merely playing the game by its rules, even in uncharted territory. And all’s indeed fair in war and in love, in market and in picket. 

His relentless zeal driven by an idea fully riped for its time has borne not just fruits, but a flourishing Eden garden where he roams with the gods, figure of speech of course. 

But I guess history has seen enough of such glowing personalities from Solomon to Alexander the Great, from King Saladin to King Richard of England, and from the House of Windsor to the Rockefeller dynasty. They come and they go, each time with a bigger bang for the buck, creating endless economic and social ripples. 

Ultimately, whatever decision they make in their life, the biggest one will still be the end-of-life decision. Unfailingly, it is still about leaving your mark in this world as you take your leave eventually. And Bezos has indeed left his, that is, a mark we will find whenever we need to order things online, business acumen and innovation notwithstanding. 

Similarly, we all leave our mark on earth too, taking the same journey ending up not in a suborbital space capsule, but in one much smaller, that is, one that is just right for our body size, and no bigger. 

And when that time comes, for each and everyone of us, let’s pray that we will be remembered for doing the best we can, with whatever we have, for as long as it takes, to make a difference in what matters in the end. 

That in itself is a life worthy of its calling too, even if we don’t end up being the richest man in the world, or one of the richest.

 

Billionaire's Breakups.

 

You know, at some point, people are going to ask a lot of questions about billionaires’ breakups. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Don’t they have everything? Doesn’t money solve all issues, if not most?

Today’s ST highlighted a number of them. They have more money than they can ever spend all in several lifetimes, yet no amount of it can guarantee a lifelong union. We all know that. Money in fact brings in more issues. 

Tech nerds are no different from the Don Juan DeMarcos of this world. Bill Gates’ 27-year-old marriage can’t bear the wily strain of his marital indiscretions. They may be world-renown philanthropist couple, saving the world from common plagues one life at a time, and even being named Time magazine 2005 (together with Bono), but when it comes to till-death-do-us-part, it’s more like till-I-can’t-bear-with-you-anymore-we-part.

Reports have been circulating that Bill “pursued several women working for him at Microsoft and at the (charity) foundation.” Bill is also a friend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And they have had several private meetings in early 2000s. 

Adding to that list is the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, 57. He is worth an unbelievable sum of US$177 billion. He married novelist Mackenzie Scott in 1992, and four kids later, in 2019, they divorced. They separated before that. 

Again, rumors swirled that Jeff was involved with current girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, before the divorce in 2019. 

Anyway, Mackenzie has since remarried to a high school chemistry teacher Dan Jewett in March this year. I guess chemistry beats big data hands down? 

Then we have the mercurial Elon Musk. His relationships are complicated, being divorced three times, twice with the same woman (actress Talulah Riley) that he had an on-and-off affair with, even during his first marriage to Canadian author Justine Wilson. Elon Musk has six children with Justine in a 8-year union. 

Lesson? You know, as I read the report (by Benson Ang), I ask myself, what marital advice can I give to my two daughters when it comes to choosing a life partner?” 

Well, my mother always half-jestingly tells them to marry rich guys - for at the very least they will be rich in a breakup and be set for life; if happiness for a lifetime is just not a realistic goal with one’s spouse.

She does have a point you know, even if it is a shallow one, because Mackenzie and Melinda are billionaires after the split up. Mackenzie met Jeff at a hedge fund in 1992 when she was his assistant. And Melinda was a general manager at Microsoft. Mind you, Mackenzie is now happily married and Jeff thinks he is a great guy. Mackenzie is giving her billions away. 

Anyway, we always tell our daughters (or sons) that marriage is to be taken seriously. Mutual respect, understanding and dignity are the red fine print in a marital vow. But, over time, marriage has to fight with age, overfamiliarity, contempt and temptations, which this world obviously lacks none of. 

So, if I would to offer an advice, bearing in mind even the wisest men, namely, Confucius and Socrates, left their marriages in tatters, I guess I would tell my daughters straight up that happy people in a marriage cheat too. That should get their attention, right? And ground them in reality too.

 

Money may buy you respect, deference and all the boastings you can throw at those who secretly envy you and want to be like you, it may also be a prominent reason why you stray in the first place. For success may bring many things to the marital table, but it can also break it for good. Look at King David...enough said? 

(And I wouldn’t even talk about Solomon, whose status differs greatly with the common man, of course). 

Going back to my daughters, I think I would gently remind them that sexual exclusivity in a monogamous union intended for life will always be an existential challenge, not just biologically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

As a father and a husband myself, in a marriage of 21 years, my daughter must know that an enduring marriage starts not at the aisle, not even at the honeymoon, where intimacy and consummation are established. Ironically, it starts only when you start to have second thoughts about it, and in turn, confront yourself to choose how you want to respond to it. And such second thoughts will surely come. Doubts are an integral part of us, so are faith, hope and reconciliation.

My daughters must know that their best insurance against a breakup is to love intentionally. There is no autopilot to love. Nothing loosens the heart from its marital promise more than a heart that starts to take things for granted. 

In fact, my son ought to drill that into his spirit, for it takes two to clap, two souls intertwine. Soul mates are two souls joined as one, and not two souls doing their own things. 

So, to my kids, your best bet for confessing “I do” at the aisle and “I still do” at your deathbed is to arrest every moment of second thoughts. Because they, like emotional weed, do grow over time when you let them be (of course, this differs for different people in different seasons trapped in a perpetually abusive relationship). 

Other than that kind of toxic marital union, the promise of faithfulness is a lot of work, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 

Let me end with the wise words of a renown psychotherapist Esther Perel, who wrote the book “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity”.

“Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew - or not. Knowing that we can lose them does not have to undermine commitment; rather, it mandates an active engagement that long-term couples often lose. The realisation that our loved ones are forever elusive should jolt us out of complacency, in the most positive sense.”

“The current of aliveness, once awoken, is a force hard to resist. What must be resisted are the dwindling curiosity, the flaccid engagements, the grim resignation, the desiccating routines. Domestic deadness is often a crisis of imagination.”

So, keep not just the flame of passion alive; ignite your imagination too. For monogamy, like rental renewal, demands your conscientious engagement to keep the heart and mind focused on, and stand unwavering by, the signed dotted line.

 

When a billionaire marries a teacher...

 

“It is not immoral to be a billionaire. But it is immoral to die as one.”

That was what the famed ethicist Peter Singer said in a debate at Oxford Union. And that was the debate I had last weekend with a couple friend of mine who run a home for troubled youths. 

He pointedly asked me, “When is enough enough?” In other words, he said there is a threshold of self-sufficiency where you don’t need any more to be happy. He pitched it at $75,000 a year. 

I did some googling after that, and he was right. Two renowned psychologist/economist, Daniel Kahneman and August Deaton, published a study in 2010 on subjective well-being and income in a sample of 450,000 US adults. 

And their two basic findings are, first, ”life got better in terms of happiness with more money, up until around $75,000 of annual income; after that, happiness flattened out so that extra income made no difference.”

The second finding is that “individuals continued to feel that they are more successful on the ladder of life as their income increased.”

Yes, poor people are not as content as the richer people, however, “higher income buys life satisfaction but not happiness.”

Imagine that, happiness flattened out at $75k (or more depending on cost of living) and the more you acquire doesn’t bring more happiness, just more life satisfaction. Are the two largely the same? Does one carry a deeper meaning for living than the other? 

Anyway, the main issue is, in our relentless acquisition of wealth, will we reach a stage where enough is never enough and we share the same sentiment captured in the biting words of Gore Vidal - “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies”? 

Let me take a short break here to share this heart warming news about the recent union of a billionaire and a school teacher. The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Ms Mackenzie Scott, has married Dan Jewett, a teacher at private Lakeside School. 

Dan said that he is helping Scott to give away her billions more expeditiously. That was actually her complaint. She has even employed a team to “figure out how to give away her money faster.”

So far, just last year, that is, after her divorce in 2019, she has given away US$6 billion. It was a record year in the history of charity. Her ex-husband Jeff Bezos said: “Dan is such a great guy, and I am happy and excited for the both of them.” 

Jeff currently holds the title of the richest man on planet earth. His net wealth rose to US$176.6 billion. 

And Dan himself said: “In a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know - and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others.”

So, let’s go back to that $75k threshold and that notion that it is immoral to die as a billionaire. Can it be said that we see a contrast here (between the former Bezoses)? That is, one is happily married and giving away her billions (she was worth US$53.5 billion) and the other may very well die remaining a billionaire? 

Where do you then arbitrarily place the threshold? In other words, are you deemed immoral if you are dead and buried with a billion dollars in your coffers and considered happy as can be when you hit that $76k mark?

Of course, let’s not be naive. While we sometimes scream “Show me the Money!”, the reality is, it is not about the money. And I don’t expect any serious, thinking individual to be drawing any threshold or line when it comes to happiness, contentment and morality or immorality? 

A study like that has to be seen in its proper context and perspective. Kahenman and Deaton are no neophyte wishful thinkers. 

Mind you, one won a Nobel price in economics, when his area of specialty is waitforit...human behaviour (And isn’t the study of economics, or for that matter, any academic discipline, the study of human behaviour as a whole?)

If we take the example of Scott who is thinking of all ways and means to give her wealth away at double quick time, I would suppose that she will still be relatively much more well off financially than the billions of people on earth, struggling, especially at this time, to make ends meet. 

She is clearly a multi-billionaire and some may say that her altruism puts her ex-husband to shame when it comes to conspicuous charity. She is also on her way to die a normal millionaire or multimillionaire, so to speak. In terms of relative net wealth, she is hands-down much poorer. 

So, when it comes to the debate with my friends, who themselves are exemplary in giving, the anonymous kind of charity, what can we say about the billionaires living amongst us? Are they guilty of never having enough? Are they just satisfied but not happy, like a hunter dragging back his kill for the day but never finding contentment or the happiness that Scott is experiencing with Dan? 

I guess nothing is quite that simple. Morality in a sense is quite a social construct and it changes in hue and shades when civilisation advances on its own complexity. And happiness, a peace of mind and contentment are largely subjective, depending also on the context, that is, one’s surroundings. 

There is no line or threshold to cross between being moral and immoral, or happy and unhappy, or having peace of mind and a mind always pissed. Take note, you can be miserably poor as well as happily rich, and somewhere in the middle, you are stoned envious, never settling, never satisfied. 

But one lesson I have learnt from the union of Dan and Scott is that enduring love depends neither on status, fame nor wealth. Call it romanticism, but I call it a reality we will have to confront at some point in our life. 

And yes, the heart no doubt wants what it wants but when the taming of the shrewd is none other than love unchanging, you can expect the hearts to join as one, beat as one and overcome as one. That is the flourishing of love for a lifetime in an authentic union of hearts. 

Alas, there is no price tag for that kind of happiness and contentment. It is beyond life satisfaction. It is beyond billions. It is beyond the relentless pursuit of things impermanent and transient. 

And if you should die with that, you will be the happiest person on earth. It would be a life of true moral victory, not by the changing moralistic standards of men, but by the benchmark of what is timeless, eternal and of unsurpassed beauty.

 

The Bezos divorce.

When you married in 1993 and have four children, and both of you are worth more than $150 billion combined, going your separate ways is going to be heartbreaking.

So, how did Jeff Bezos (55) and Mackenzie Bezos (48) take it? How did they take the divorce in a marriage of 25 years?

Regardless of who was at fault, this is what Mackenzie said in her parting shot: -

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness.”

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of Amazon shares plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”

“Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.”

And here’s what Jeff said: -

“She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our future unroll, I know, I’ll always be learning from her.”

“I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Well, if not for the divorce, those two seem like they are actually in love for the second time round. Those parting words could very well be love letters written to each other to reaffirm their passion and commitment. 

And the billionaire couple has turned marital bind into friendship ties, with their commitment to parenthood remaining just as robust as before. 

Honestly, I don’t think money plays such a large part (in the largely conciliative divorce) since I have read about ultra rich couples divorcing with much fanfare and acrimony, especially when the other has been unfaithful. 

I know money can placate souls, even splitting ones, but most times, money is the source of aggravation too. 

So, maybe there are three kinds of divorces to watch out for in this modern world. 

The first kind is one that cannot let go of the past. The betrayal consumes the betrayed party. He or she will always be the victim and that defines their whole identity, even their future recovery. 

The author, Esther Perel (“The State of Affairs”), calls this first group the Sufferers. 

She wrote: “Couples like these live in a permanent state of contraction. To the unfaithful, the betrayed spouse becomes the sum total of her vengeful fury. To the betrayed spouse, the unfaithful becomes the sum total of his transgressions, with few redeeming qualities.”

“Marriage like these may survive, but the protagonists are emotionally dead. In any case, when past infidelity becomes the hallmark of a couple’s life, whatever was broken can’t be pieced back together. The relationship wears a permanent cast.”

Then comes the second kind. The couples in this group are moving out of the past but are caught in the present. They want to rebuild their life separate from the divorce but somehow, they encounter some resistance. The pain still lingers. The disappointment takes hold. The regrets swell. 

Perel calls this group the Builders. 

She wrote: “These couples can move past the infidelity, but they don’t necessarily transcend it. Their marriages revert to a more or less peaceful version of the status quo antebellum - the way things were, without their relationship undergoing any significant change.”

She added: “An affair is revealed in a relationship, and an affair reveals a lot about a relationship. It sheds a stark light on its constructs - the cracks, the imbalances, the dry rot, the subsidence, but also the strong foundations, the solid walls, and the cozy corners. 

The builders focus on these structural strengths. They are not looking for massive renovations; they simply want to come back to the home they know and the pillow they can rest on...Ultimately, lying and deceiving are more agonising than thrilling, and the end of the affair is simply a relief. When they look back, the whole episode is an anomaly best forgotten.”

Lastly, the third kind. 

They are the wayfarers, planetarians, plotting their own future, mapping their own stars. They look forward to a future not so much by leaving a broken marriage behind, but transforming it into a friendship of immeasurable worth. They do not just live in a stasis-like present, struggling to forget the past, they instead live for the future, striving to make a better one. 

Perel calls this group the Explorers. 

She wrote: “The affair becomes a catalyst for transformation...In contrast with the sufferers, who conceive of their ordeal as moral absolutes, the viewpoint of the explorers is more fluid. They more readily distinguish wrong from hurtful, paving a smoother road for clemency.”

I guess the Bezos fall snugly into this group. That is why she can say, ““Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.” And he can say, “... am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”

Lesson? Treasure. That’s the lesson from this breakup. Treasure. 

Whether we admit or not, the statistics don’t lie. Divorces are real. 

In 2014, out of 28k marriages, about 7k ended in divorce. Divorce was highest in marriages between 5 and 10 years, about 26%. 

People break up for many reasons, not all of them are bad reasons. Many stay together too, but not all of them are for good reasons. 

And I’ll leave you to sort out why some couples of twenty to thirty years stuck together for reasons that have nothing to do with the first vow they took at the altar, when the passion was the highest, and the dreams were the loftiest. 

This quote by Irish-philosopher John O’ Donohue should wake us up on the lurking reality of a straying heart. 

“It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention of commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smolder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the human heart Eros remains a light sleeper.” 

Mm...while Ero is a light sleeper, treasuring your marriage means that the Ero in the dark chambers of our hearts always finds itself on the same marital bed when it is aroused and awake. 

We do that by keeping that first altar promise close to our heart, by nurturing the relationship instead of seeing it as an obligation to the kids, by focusing on the little things and not trying to overcompensate with the big ones, by guarding our desires with renewing passion, and by stripping novelty of its lure because what is new is not always what is lasting, or better.

And treasure works the other way too when a marriage breaks up. That is the reality many cannot avoid. It happens and happens when Eros has the better of us. 

We fall, we stumble, that’s a fact. We stagnate or we move forward, that’s also a fact. 

Treasure here means to find a safe space with close, compassionate friends to get back on our feet again. 

Treasure also means letting the hurts in the past go so that we may heal eventually. 

Our soul however broken has to move on and we have to treasure the process, invest it in with rustic determination, that is, to treasure the present recovery and treasure the future possibility of growth and discovery. 

We owe it to ourselves to find restoration, peace of heart, forgiveness, and love again. 

So, whether we are married or go our separate ways, we treasure what we have, where we have it, and what we can do about it. 

Nothing is a dead end unless we make it so. Nothing has to fall into pieces if we are prepared to piece them back together again. And nothing is without a future unless we condemn it to live in the past forever. 

All this applies to marriage too, lest one thinks that planning a memorable, expensive wedding dinner in a big splash of passion is where one’s effort to love ends and autopilot takes over. Cheerz.

The Unbridgeable Gap?

When Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, tipped over the $100 billion mark this week to top even Bill Gates as the world's richest man, I don't know whether to congratulate him or to shake my head in resignation. 

Honestly, and I know it's not all liquid cash, what do you do with that much money in one limited lifetime? 

At some point, don't you think the extra dollar added to your millions or billions adds nothing to deepen the existential meaning of your life, your personal fulfilment, and most importantly, the length of your mortal life? 

Of course, Jeff Bezos can't really stop his astronomical wealth growth because he had started a technological revolution decades back with no plans to become this mega-monstrously rich like he is today. 

Same applies to the Zuckerbergs of our flatten world of transformative technology and "winner-takes-all" economy.

But like it or hate it, he is reaping it all in now with a vindictive giant harvesting sickle. 

I guess somewhere in the above paragraphs, my readers can discern the congratulatory and resignatory part - not to mention a quiet pout of disgruntled envy thrown into the cauldron of mixed emotions for good measure.

Yet, I guess if you have a choice of being rich and happy, and being poor and happy, maybe being rich and happy is happier? 

Or is it oxymoronic to put "poverty" and "happiness" together in the first place, that is, a non-starter?

Today's article entitled "Left behind in land of equal opportunity" is about the poor, the very poor, and also the extremely unhappy. 

Nirmal Ghosh, the author, started off the article with a drug user who did jail time and has been living 15 years on the street. 

41-yr-old Kaels Raybon (an American) has already accepted his fate, and resigned to the fact that he will never get out of the poverty trap. 

His wife and four kids have left him, his other family members have died, and with a criminal record, no one will employ him. 

Kaels recalled that his kids once came to visit him, but he was torn. "I wanted them to stay, but at the same time I didn't, because I have nothing to offer them. Emotionally, I'm a wreck most of the time. I see kids and dads, and I want that too. But it's just not in my cards."

Mind you, in the land of the American Dream and also Abundance (of millionaires and billionaires), there are 41 million Americans living in poverty (that is, below $16k in annual income). Some even much lower than $16k. That's about 12.7% of the total American population, and some 46% of them live in "deep poverty".

In fact, US has the highest child poverty rates - 25% in the developed world - as reported in the article. 

Now, according to Ghosh, two factors have made poverty even worse for people like Kaels - that is, Trump's recent drastic tax reduction and the culture of the rich.

Just before Christmas, Trump passed the tax reform bill that literally handed over US$1.5 trillion (it's a "T" and not "B") to the super rich.

Although he claims that the middle class will be assisted, analysts are however saying that the benefit will disproportionately end up with the top echelon of the society. 

And guess who is paying for that disproportionate handover of US$1.5 trillion? 

Yes, the poor are paying for it in welfare cuts...so, the poor is getting even poorer. So much for safety nets for the poor. It's now the bottomless pits that welcome them. 

Then, there is culture. Ghosh wrote about "caricatured narratives" when he said this about the American culture:-

"The rich are seen as "industrious, entrepreneurial, patriotic, and the drivers of economic success". The poor are "wasters, losers and scammers". As long as you have the mindset that we're all on our own, it becomes possible that when my own brother falls off the cliff, I'm able to say, 'Well, he had the same opportunities as me. He's failed, he has to cope with it,' instead of saying, 'I can't let that happen. I've got to do something.""

Lesson? Just one. 

When Jesus said that the poor you will always have with you, the same can be said about the rich. They just exist in much fewer numbers. 

But between the poor and the rich, it is "hope" that bridges the gap. And this hope comes in the form of the middle class. 

In my view, everything flourishes if you have (or maintain) a robust, fluid and transitioning middle class. 

A society that has such a robust middle class is unlike a Dead-Sea society where all the resources flow in one direction and stagnate at the top, leaving the other regions dry, parched and starving (for hope). 

The middle class also breathes life into democracies by empowering the masses to fight for change for the betterment of all. 

But if you hollow-out the middle class, then you also strangulate hope, and burn the bridges that allow the poor to move up one day to become well off for themselves and their children. 

When the rich gets richer and the poor poorer, what you end up is a society with an anemic middle class, and a hollowing-out of the middle class means that you are left with two nefarious developments - abandonment and tokenism. 

The abandonment comes with its own self-preserving and self-justifying culture (or narrative) for the rich who views the poor with seething indignation as deserving of their lot in life because they are generally "wasters, losers and scammers". 

And tokenism is the superficial (self-driven) act of charity or generosity without the accompanying transformation that Jesus talked about when he hinted to a passage in the Old Testament to his listeners:- 

"For the poor you will always have with you in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ (Deuteronomy 15:7-11)."

I believe there are two ways to do charity. One is to offer what crumbs you have left on the banquet table after the feasting is over. And the other is to invite all to feast with you at the banquet table - it's free, equal and fair seating for all. 

One is therefore about a change of heart that Jesus talks about, and the other is just a show of a change of status. 

Alas, my concern is that this may be happening in Singapore since when it comes to income and social inequality and the insidious social divide, we are up there in the charts or trend. 

I am also concern that our leaders in engaging in the politics to draw the rich into our land, and in turn, prospering in their own ways in such engagement, may have duly acknowledged that "the poor we will always have with us" without the accompanying deutronomist conviction that one should always open wide one's hand to his brother and sister, to the needy and to the poor, in his land.

Are we then washing our hands over the poor as an acceptable collateral casualty on the one-track road to economic prosperity while hiding behind the parliamentary rostrum to preach about the many token attempts to close the rich-poor gap?

In other words, should our middle class be thinned out due to the rapidly widening income and social divide, will our leaders take our country to a stage where the rich only shares the crumbs on their banquet table to satisfy their pricked conscience while leaving the poor to fend for themselves out in the cold?

Food for thought? Or food for mass feasting? Cheerz.