Podcast picks for May: Gen Zs and savings, US-China tensions and COE bidding woes

The month of May saw the release of many podcasts by The Straits Times spanning a range of topics as casual as the breakdown of the popularity of the Taiwanese variety show Kang Xi Lai Le, in Jan Lee’s How Did We Get Here – a subset of her #PopVultures series, to the hard-hitting discussion of the warming Himalayas being a water crisis for half of Asia in Nirmal Ghosh’s Green Pulse.

The following three episodes emerged as the top for May.

In Your Opinion: Do Gen Zers really have no savings for the long term?

Hosted by ST assistant podcast editor Lynda Hong and STNow reporter Carmen Sin, the episode shines light on the attitudes youth today share about financial prudence. Joined by He Ruiming, co-founder of personal finance blog The Woke Salaryman, and influencer Daisy Anne Mitchell, they debate the big question posed by Ms Sin - “Is that all that matters, that I don’t go into debt?”

Ms Mitchell, 26, shares that despite spending fairly comfortably, she would only do so within her means. Savings, to her, are meant to be spent, and her efforts in growing her wealth are simply covered by depositing some savings into an investment app without actually knowing what happens to her money. 

Is this mentality a cause for concern?

On the contrary, Mr He, 35, divulges how he incredibly saved up S$100,000 by the age of 28.

He posits that while there is nothing wrong with youths willing to spend comfortably for pleasure, they will need to take responsibility for their actions when it snowballs in the long run.

“I think in the future, maybe like 30 years from now, you cannot retire. I don’t think it’s fair to say something like, ‘Oh, I didn’t have this option to not retire.’ Because actually you were spending,” Mr He said.

Asian Insider: Why war ‘by design’ over Taiwan is unlikely: Bilahari Kausikan

“I don’t think… the US or China are looking for trouble; neither are they going to ease their competition,” says Mr Bilahari Kausikan, former Permanent Secretary and Ambassador-at-Large at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and present chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. 

In this episode, The Straits Times’ global contributor Nirmal Ghosh and Mr Kausikan unpack the growing tensions between China and the United States.

South-east Asian countries also appreciate there is no strategic balance in the region without the US, so they will find ways to deal with whoever is in the White House, come the US Election in November, adds Mr Kausikan.

He cited the most recent ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute survey of 10 Asean countries.

“If you ask, and it’s very consistent over time, is China important? Is it going to get important? The answer across all 10 Asean countries is overwhelmingly yes. You ask the question, do you trust China to do the right thing? The answer is overwhelmingly no, across all Asean countries,” he notes.

With competition and the possibility of conflict being an inherent quality of international relations, Mr Kausikan emphasises that what matters most now is management, rather than resolution. 

COE Watch: Why COE bidding gives this seasoned motor dealer a heartache

“I’m not necessarily asking that COE needs to come down, but it just needs to be more stable… then it manages customers’ expectations,” says Ms Sabrina Sng, managing director at Wearnes Automotive.

In the episode, she expresses her concerns with how the volatility of COE prices adds to the bugbear she and other dealers experience. 

When prices are lower, customers latch on to hopes that prices will fall further and wait out, before withdrawing completely when it rises, she notes.

Additionally, the cuts in rebates made prematurely before the complete rollout of EV infrastructure have been discouraging. She shares that with only about 10,000—of which it is uncertain if they have been fully installed—out of the announced 40,000 public and 20,000 private Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers installed by 2030, an objective evaluation on the benefits of EVs is hard to make.

With EVs gradually making their mark in the automotive scene in Singapore, ST’s senior transport correspondent Lee Nian Tjoe speaks with Ms Sng on the cuts to incentives for adopting EVs.

Do also check out our True Crimes of Asia podcast series, which clinched the gold award for Best Podcast at the Digital Media Awards Asia 2024 in April, and third place for Best Podcast at the Digital Media Awards Worldwide 2024 on May 27, both organised by the World Association of News Publishers (Wan-Ifra).