The future is unknowable

A COLLEAGUE shared that after completing his studies in the UK, he worked there for a while, and then made a brief stop in Australia, before settling in Singapore. He's a Singaporean now and he reckoned that he has done much better financially and professionally than his classmates who had decided to stay on in London. At that time, it wasn't clear if he had made the right decision to come back to Asia. London had the buzz.

Today, London is under a huge cloud of uncertainty. The currency has depreciated significantly. "Who would have predicted Brexit?" That's why he said he is very wary of macro forecasts.

I also know of someone who after graduating with a medical degree in Singapore decided to break his bond to go back to Malaysia in the early 1990s. The rationale was that Malaysia has a bigger market. Since then, Singapore and Malaysia have taken quite different growth trajectories. The ringgit has tanked while the Singapore dollar has gone from strength to strength. According to World Bank numbers, the GDP per capita of Malaysia in 2018 was US$11,239. That's not much higher than China's US$9,771. Meanwhile, Singapore's GDP per capita last year was at US$65,582.