MM Lee urges Singaporeans to “bear” with competition with foreigners

Here is my view on MM Lee's comment reported on The Straits Times 19th Feb, 2010.
I am not against growth. I believe our economy will eventually reach a saturation point like most western countries and Japan. I am not being complacent here. Realistically our long term objective is to strife towards a sustainable, more balanced and moderated growth – not just property prices and productivity growths. I like to share the ancient Chinese philosophical wisdom – “Zhong Yung”,that is the “Doctrine of the Mean”. It means to work towards a more balanced growth, so as to avoid the social ills that are sufacing in Singapore today. I don’t think Singaporeans are just "Complain Kings". Many of our middle and lower income Singaporeans, amongst our friends and relatives, belonging to this social group, are suffering quietly, struggling to cope with our high cost of living here in Singapore. Singapore is undergoing an overheated state of growth in some markets, eg our real estate market. Overheated growth can be very dangerous like what China was experiencing in the early 80s’. We should aim at growth not just property prices, competitiveness and productivity and development of infrastructures. Mental, spiritual, moral priciples and a more caring society are just as equally important to us Singaporeans. Perhaps, there’s alot of wisdom in the China Premiers like Zhu Rongji and Wen Jia Bao, they always send reminders to cap the realistic economic growth targets for the country.