Was at Orchard window shopping just. As I strolled down the walkways in the major shopping centres, I spotted many squeed into the countless shops in town, flipping through the shelves and clothes aisles, looking for dresses, especially so in shops which have the magical four letter word S-A-L-E plastered on their display windows. Get out into the open and you'll also see thousands of cars roaming the road, many sporting license plates which indicate them as cars which were freshly bought off the showrooms. With such a bustle of activity in the heart of the island, it really makes one wonder whether there really is any sign of recession in sight. Whether the economic gloom pronounced by the government was a bluff to help trim the spending expenditures of the working class, teaching them the confucian values of saving. On the other hand, newspaper headlines often reeked of hints and sometimes blatant statements of how the government has been tightening its pursestrings, setting up helplines and centres to aid the unemployed, the latest figures standing at 4%. Major shipping lines pulling out of PSA, and the new kid on the block (being the new port at Malaysia) placing enormous pressure on the GLCs to change tactics. At the lower realm of society, we see many retrenched, the lucky ones holding onto their jobs like its their pot of gold while those who have already been retrenched, scrimming and scrapping to get past each day, often having to rely on contributions from charities to live. The stark contrast is really unsettling. It is either that the government has done too good a job at calming the citizens and hypnotising them into believing that the economy is not at risj (to prevent social upheaval) or the wealth discrepancy between the rich and the poor has grown so large, beyond reasonable comprehension. Or locals have become so complacent that they believe that Singapore can weather absolutely anything. Anything. And, that, as they all say, will prove to be the nemeisis, the prelude to the downfall of Singapore. kai 2002

The ultimate nemesis of the island