(blogging… Feel free to reply)

I told my wife about your suggestion that my parents will leave behind a 75-sqm Beijing apartment so I might pass away having too much asset. She immediately agreed that we should increase spending when on vacations. I reminded her Zhu Rong also said spend more, without wasting.

Taking a more serious look, your suggestion now looks like a slippery slope to me. There are many implicit assumptions in this plausible theory.

Assumption: the Beijing property will be cashed out at market value. Devil in the details — inheritance tax; Exchange rate movement over 20 years; capital control affecting how I can bring the cash out of China; …

Assumption: property price will not fall below today’s level. I think this is questionable, given Beijing properties are overpriced by multiple criteria.

The Beijing property is very different from realized cash profit sitting in a US or Singapore bank.

Assumption: we can rely on government medical benefits, and won’t need a lot of personal medical reserve.

Assumption: my 2 kids will never need a lot of financial help from me. A big assumption! My parents gave a lot of financial help to us in their 70’s. Many old parents do the same. Few people are so wealthy at age 30 that they don’t need it.

Assumption: I don’t need to save up for my kids going to private colleges, something like USD 250k/student

Assumption: inflation will not sky-rocket. Some may say high inflation is a justification to increase spending, but I disagree fundamentally. I’d rather invest in property, gold and possibly stocks.

Even if all the assumptions turn out true, I still wish to have a bigger asset base to generate $50k to $100k/year passive income in my retirement years. Perhaps I need $5mil base?

In conclusion, I’m in no position to increase spending.