Worries..worries..

From what I was informed, Singapore suffered three major economic doldrums in recent times. It started with the 1997 property crash, 2000 dot-com crash and the latest 2002(or was it 2003?) Sars attack.

Since the eradication of Sars, economies at large has been growing and expanding. But predication has been abound of a US slowdown since the early part of 2006. And now analyst are pretty firm that the slowdown should take place anytime 2007.

I'm not exactly sure what is the level of reliance we have on US right now. Since the dot-com crash, slowly but surely some of our market exposure has been transferred to other regional superpower to be, such as India and China.

But with the USSFTA, the ties we had with them might be even stronger than before.

Personally I wasn't seriously affected in either of these market crashes. I just started my NS in 1997 and I ORD in 2000. The trickling effect of the US dot com crash took about 2 years to hit our shore and working in one then, I was laid off.

And during the Sars period I was working with an aircraft spares distributors. Very little people are keen to travel then and the company did take a hit. But it still manage to pull through eventually.

2007. I'm in my own business. Even with the economy at such a "peak", I dare say we are underperforming. Any lesser would surely be a worry.

I'm going to get my own house. Although the property price now is still reasonable and only on the rise(I'm looking at resale), any dent to my business would surely mean lesser income. How would I be able to finance all the other stuff one need to get for a new house. Worry no. 2.

If I'm rich in savings, such matters would just be like a speck of sand in my eye. But that is not the case right now.

Singapore should be able to tide over any slowdown with its huge reserve of US$120bil accumulated over 4 decades but for a peasant like me, I wonder how many damage could I take before I call for time-out.