Is choosing Singapore's next PM like the Squid Game? Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief asks PM Lee
PM Lee Hsien Loong was speaking to Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait on Wednesday (Nov 17) at a gala dinner at the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore on Day 1 of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.
When asked about the issue of political succession, Mr Micklethwait said PM Lee had put two of his potential successors onto the Covid-19 task force to see how they do.
Referring to Finance Minister Lawrence Wong and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung, he asked: "It looks a little like Squid Game. Do you have any idea how are they performing? Are you thinking of eliminating them or continuing?"
Squid Game is a popular Netflix drama where contestants compete in games for a tempting prize, but are eliminated and killed along the way. PM Lee said his approach is not to write off any participants.
"I do not have spare. I am not looking for a winner. I am trying to build a team, and the team needs many different skills and many different people to carry a very heavy responsibility of taking Singapore into the next generation, beyond me and my age group of leaders.
"Each makes a contribution. I put them there not as a beauty contest, but because I think they can make a contribution and it is a very important job which needs to be done. If I do not put the best people available on the Covid-19 team, what am I doing with them?"
MrMicklethwait also asked about plans for a wealth tax, and the Prime Minister said this was an element in a comprehensive revenue system.
"You tax consumption, you tax income, you tax sins, and you should tax wealth, whether in the form of property, ideally wealth in other forms," he said.
He added that Singapore will study this but it needs to find a system of taxation which is progressive and which people will accept as fair.
"Everybody needs to pay some. But if you are able to pay more, well, you should bear a larger burden of the tax. And if you are less well-off, you should enjoy a greater amount of the Government's support schemes and benefits."
But he noted that unlike income inequality, it is more difficult to measure inequality of wealth, which can today be kept in non-fungible tokens or Bitcoin.
"It is not as easy to manage, but it is something which we do want to be worried about because we would like to make sure that each generation starts from as equal a starting point as possible," he said.
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