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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

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Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#81

Post by sugarpile »

baybal2 wrote: post #45
xuki wrote: post #19

The article failed to mention 1 important thing: LKY built an incorruptible government. With all the power he had, he could have done so much better for his family if he just tried, but that wouldn't necessarily be good for the country. A lot of countries want to be Singapore, but few have a leader of his caliber.

> LKY built an incorruptible government Google Temasik Holdings

Anything specific about it? The PM's wife being CEO is obviously a bit suspect but it would be far more notable if the family was siphoning off money which there are unsaid said things about but never anything explicit which is... frustrating. So many untalked about things with regards to sg.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#82

Post by ido »

odiroot wrote: post #57
IdiocyInAction wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-free market housing isn't that great either though, like in Berlin.

And the current (long-ruling) government makes it worse every year.

Since the Mietendeckel went into effect in February my (already low) rent went down by almost 300€ per month - I have never experienced anything like that anywhere else I lived in. We moved from Tel Aviv to Berlin in late 2013 & even back then we left a crumbling, old 55m 2-room apartment in a worse location that costed more than our current 92m, 3-room apartment in much better state of repair & in a better location (in terms of transit access, schools, environment, noise, etc - the only significant advantage I can think of for our old apartment or neighborhood is that my parents & sisters lived nearby).

According to the first internet resource[0][1] I found (as well as anecdotal data from many people I know in both cities) wages are more or less the same in both (tech workers earn more in Tel Aviv but everyone else earns more in Berlin).

I would say while the situation needs improvement (namely more housing built & faster) it's hardly the worse I've seen & almost everyone I know in other major global cities suffers from a worse housing market.

[0] https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/berlin-germany

[1] https://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/tel-aviv-israel

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#83

Post by seanmcdirmid »

thehappypm wrote: post #60
ethanbond wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get identical effects as Singapore’s state owned land without actually making it state owned/managed/priced by simply instituting a very high Land Value Tax. Rent collected for buildings/management/amenities goes to landlord, rent collected for the physical land upon which the building exists (which is valuable not because of the landlord) is recouped by the community as tax.

Higher taxes also directly cause higher rents passed on to renters.

Lower taxes means more money people can devote to housing, which in turn can also bid up prices.

This is why the USA provides for a foreign housing deduction, or Americans could never practically live in Singapore without running into double taxation.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#84

Post by 082349872349872 »

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #72

TL;DR: Gist: Described as SG's "original sin," Lee's detainment without trial of pro-Communist opposition in 1963 paves the way for one-man rule. Lee applies scientific rigor to backwater of Southeast Asia. Theory 1: SG's small geography is uniquely tailored for Lee's centralism. Abstractions collapse and errors get magnified over larger distances (USSR, China, Brazil). Lee and Chinese premiere Jiang Zemin apply SG's…

Theory 3: neither zimbabwe nor north korea are on the Strait of Malacca.

Malacca was just behind the Strait of Hormuz for oil transit in 2015:

https://i.insider.com/551b00ef6da8112c6484d430?width=1300&fo...

and it is strategically located in between Hormuz and Shandong:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/gjnvwxywkpw/ChinaOi... (July 2020)

Exercise for the reader: locate the paracels and spratlys. (S'pore would be just off the bottom, on the left, lah.)

Crude Rules Everything Around Me.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#85

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sugarpile wrote: post #81
baybal2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LKY built an incorruptible government Google Temasik Holdings

Anything specific about it? The PM's wife being CEO is obviously a bit suspect but it would be far more notable if the family was siphoning off money which there are unsaid said things about but never anything explicit which is... frustrating. So many untalked about things with regards to sg.

Corruption is always a spectrum right? My guess is that Singapore is at the lower end of the scale, although not at zero.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#86

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xuki wrote: post #18
freddie_mercury wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Vietnam and I've always been surprised at the large number of Singaporean tech companies that open up development offices in Vietnam. And it isn't (just) to save money on salaries. The average quality of a Singaporean developer is shockingly bad for such an educated, developed country. And saying that Vietnam has more creativity isn't exactly a high bar given the similar values of Confucian hierarchy here!

The best developers in Singapore usually work in SV, because Singaporeans have access to H-1B1 which makes it extremely easy for them to move over.

You mean their H1B quota is somehow more liberal making it easier for them to move?

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#87

Post by xuki »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #86
xuki wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best developers in Singapore usually work in SV, because Singaporeans have access to H-1B1 which makes it extremely easy for them to move over.

You mean their H1B quota is somehow more liberal making it easier for them to move?

Google H-1B1. It's essentially unlimited for Singaporeans.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#88

Post by xuki »

not_a_moth wrote: post #17

Singapore's population is very conservative, e.g. live with parents until marry, homosexuality is illegal, a lot of pressure against interracial couples (my experience), and essentially a single, dominant media voice. There is a militant approach to education which produces nice test results, but it doesn't produce young entrepreneurs, just conservative careers, helped by statutory hiring quotas. I don't think the Si…

> live with parents until marry

This is a culture thing, nothing to do with being conservative/liberal. Renting in Singapore is expensive, therefore people prefer to stay with parents until they can afford to buy their own HDB.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#89

Post by [deleted] »

taktoa wrote: post #63
thehappypm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher taxes also directly cause higher rents passed on to renters.

That is uniquely not the case for LVT, because the supply of land is fixed, whereas the demand for housing is variable. EDIT: to be clear, I meant the "passing on to renters" part, not the "property may become more expensive" part.

[deleted]

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#90

Post by refurb »

danielheath wrote: post #9
lordnacho wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, we tend to label every successful economy "capitalism", but actually if you look at Singapore there's some things that are not so obviously free market. Housing, for instance.

Gotta say, housing is one good that the free market seems to not really be amazing at. Here in Australia, it has become an investment vehicle; a huge amount of housing stock is empty while a third of the population are living in very poor accommodation.

I don’t know about Australia, but one of the reasons that the housing market is so distorted in the US is due to gov’t intervention. 30 year mortgages, FHA loans, tax deduction of mortgage interest, etc, have been major drivers of real estate price inflation. Add in single family home zoning and it shouldn’t be that surprising we are where we are.
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