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Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

freemalaysiatoday.com

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Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#31

Post by nexle »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

> Singapore is an odd country

The reason you find it odd is because you really can't find another country that the citizen have such a high trust towards the government and let the government do (almost) anything they wanted, yet the government doesn't abuse this power (mostly, at least) and continue focus on long term benefits of the country (rather than short term gains because the political party need to survive the next election in few years time)

> One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their military has barely been used.

Ther reason is quite simple: Singapore is a very small country and it is very easily to be invaded. The high military spending is more of a deterent.

> What would you even call their socioeconomic system?

It is very much a free market capitalism with some state intervention, similar to many other countries. If anything, I would say Singapore is more free market than many western countries due to the fact that the government is very pro-business as the country is heavily rely on foreign businesses to survive.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#32

Post by [deleted] »

dyauspitr wrote: post #14
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

It’s a city state, calling it a country is a stretch.

[deleted]

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#33

Post by arugulum »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

>that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices

I don't believe this is true. If you're talking about Non-Constituency Members of Parliament, they are consolation prizes given to best losers, and there are many things they cannot vote on. Moreover, the ruling party almost never lifts the party whip, i.e. members of the party CANNOT vote against the party line (without being kicked out of the party, which results in them being kicked out of parliament). In other words, since the ruling party already has a majority, any opposing votes literally do not matter.

If you aren't talking about the NCMP scheme, then I do not know what you're talking about, as the ruling party does institute policies that are beneficial for the incumbent party.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#34

Post by fragmede »

reissbaker wrote: post #21
djaouen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The country also passed a new law earlier this year that would allow the police to control the bank accounts of individuals who they suspect to be scam targets and limit what transactions they can do." This is crazy to me. How far are we willing to go in terms of restricting freedoms for safety?

But this is just part of how Singapore is different than America and Europe. China has even stricter controls in terms of limiting what individuals can do with their bank accounts (you can't transfer money to non-Chinese-citizens at all!). Western countries put enormous value on personal liberty — America probably the most so, but even EU countries are extremely liberal in a liberty sense compared to historical norms…

Plenty of people seem to be quite supportive of the idea that visa holders (ie not citizens), or simply brown people, should NOT be allowed to criticize the standing president, so I don't know that the idea of personal liberty is as strong as I believed it was growing up.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#35

Post by ebbi »

idle_zealot wrote: post #10
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

> What would you even call their socioeconomic system? They're not exactly doing neoliberal capitalism, their government is far too involved for that. They're not socialist, they've got free enterprise galore. The autocracy+militarization+heavily meddled with big business thing most resembles fascist states It's just State Capitalism, isn't it? Like China. A market-based economy with free enterprise, but no illusions…

I'm not saying democracy is a failed project all together, but something that has been on my mind a lot recently is that democracy is quite inefficient - where I'm from anyway (New Zealand). We are a small country, with general elections every four years. So most of the decisions our government takes a less bold, and optimized for short term interests and to get the next cycle vote. And when we have had times a government has made plans for a large infrastructure project, a successive government will come in and undo all of that planning.

For example, Auckland, our major economic hub, doesn't even have proper public transportation, and now citizens are battling with issues commuting to and from work.

I think part of Singapore's success has been it's ability to make bold decisions and see it through without worrying about short term election cycles.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#36

Post by userbinator »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

What would you even call their socioeconomic system?

Pure authoritarianism.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#37

Post by mcmoor »

veqq wrote: post #17
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

> What would you even call their socioeconomic system? China economically functions similarly to Singapore, with long documented connections and explicit emulation. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping already began this and hundreds of thousands of Chinese officials and leaders were trained there and in industrial parks with the explicit goal of knowledge sharing with the dream of "planting 1000 Singapores". [0, 1, 2, 3] > fascis…

And this is why I can't take anyone's fascism definition seriously. Those definitions are contradictory, and include and exclude governments that don't deserve it. Especially when they try to imply that X = fascist = bad guy. If I heard about Umberto Eco one more time!!

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#38

Post by exidy »

iepathos wrote: post #18
tom_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in Singapore: don't ask us! If you disagree, vote against the government, and/or get out on the streets and protest! If you don't live in Singapore: it's not your problem.

The erosion of freedom is everyone's problem. Normalizing government control over personal bank accounts is a dangerous precedent. Today it's scam prevention, tomorrow it's freezing accounts of political opponents.

> tomorrow it's freezing accounts of political opponents

Except that this already happened[0], and not in "authoritarian" Singapore but in "liberal" Canada.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#39

Post by hitekker »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

If you haven't, go read "The Singapore Story" https://annas-archive.org/md5/6578558e0416e264a39da0448003ec... If you're bored, skip to the Japanese invasion Chapter and then read on. Many unique things happened in Singapore to make Singapore, Singapore.

Re: Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

#40

Post by anon291 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #3

Singapore is an odd country. The only country, to my knowledge, that had independence thrust upon it without its consent. Extremely prosperous compared to its neighbors. An autocratic, single party state where the government is so popular that they need to rig their elections against themselves to get dissenting voices. One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their…

Their social system is familiar to anyone with an Asian family
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