What's been happening in the last 10 years has been insane. These days, in the average Asian metropolitan city (whether it's prosperous like Singapore or broke and corrupt like Malaysia, it's the same), a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment runs 20-30X the annual income of the average young person under 35. Ignore the currency, we're talking ratios here which are similar across countries. People making 40-60k a year but smaller 1 bedroom apartments running 600-900k, 2 bedrooms are 800k-1.5mil. The average 3-4 bedroom house is 1-2 million. Yet more and more people have been buying property as easily as picking up bread at the grocery store.
On top of that, cars are insanely expensive in both countries, a Toyota Corolla is 120k, or about 2 years' worth of the average income. It's possible for many people in Singapore to save money by using public transportation, but much of the supposed "middle class" or medium-well money (not new money but not old money either) still have a car anyway. In Malaysia, a car is mandatory because public transportation is shit, weather is hot and muggy year-round with heavy downpours... like Florida but with more thunderstorms.
At this point, you could argue that the reason all these young people are able to afford their homes and cars is because they live with their parents all the way until they get married, so they save loads on rental. Right? On top of that, many Asian parents pay for their kids to go to university, so no student debt. So even more to savings right?
Except these people aren't buying Toyota Corollas, they're buying Mercedes and BMWs which run at least 200k for a shitbox C-class or 3 series.
Except young people are also spending tons on "MUH LIFESTYLE". Brunch/avocado toast with coffee: 30 per person. Dinner at a restaurant with wine: 100 per person. Weekend getaways: 100-200 for a plane ticket, 100-300 for a hotel/airbnb, and another 100-300 for spending.
Except these people are buying luxury goods: sneakers for the men, slip ons for the women that run 1-2k a pair, designer bags/purses that go for 5-10k, belts and wallets that cost 1k.... at least 1 item per month.
My real upper middle class friends and I did the quick maths and it doesn't add up. Either lots of people are making fuckloads of money at their job or in sidegigs selling insurance, supplements or being "Instagram influencers" with 100k followers or landed a huge windfall from crypto/TSLA stocks. Or they're barely saving any money (best case scenario) or fucking eyeballs deep in debt (probable scenario) and their crypto/TSLA gains have only been paper gains, which have been recently wiped out (I suspect this too, and we'll find out real soon...).
IT. DOESN'T. FUCKING. ADD UP. If these medium-well money youth are so wealthy, why are they still working their wagie jobs and complaining about the toxicity of politics, backstabbing and gossip that plagues most Asian offices? Why not just quit and enjoy the million dollar 1000sqft condo you bought, drive around to cafes in your German automobile and shop designer goods every day (or just every weekend if you wanna be a "money saver")... I mean they'll have exponentially more time to spend and humblebrag on Instagram and TikTok if they didn't have that useless time sink of an office job.