Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
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Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#2"I could not ask their sons to fight and die for the properties of the wealthy: Lee Kuan Yew"
"I resolved to enable every household to own its own home. If we were going to get the people to take National Service seriously, I could not ask their sons to fight and die for the properties of the wealthy. We worked out a personal savings scheme that allowed them to own an apartment painlessly through instalments over 20 years. We sold the apartments to them at below cost to enhance their assets. Today, 95 per cent of Singaporean households are homeowners. It has immeasurably increased their wealth and our social stability. Without home ownership, we would have become like Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong, where the voters in the cities are disaffected because they pay a large proportion of their salaries in rents.”
https://sgmatters.sg/i-could-not-ask-their-sons-to-fight-and...
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#3Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it)
It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good.
Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "homes for us but not for thee" however he did cry when the greater Malaysian dream fell apart.
The arguments over his house and garden post death sum up the legacy well: he did not seek ulogising or mythologised shrine status, the apparatchiks can't resist the temptation.
I see parallels to Britain's Enoch Powell. Super smart, highly educated, disinterested in what others think, Not afraid to be contrarian and not particularly interested in performative democracy but also a bit one eyed on his hobby horse. If Powell hadn't been a racist shit, he could have been as effective as Lee Kwan Yew was.
Trivialising Singapore-for-foreigners as "no long hair, gays, gum or spitting" misses the point. Singapore welcomes all kinds of people if they have money, contribute to society and are useful or rich. Modern Singapore has gays and lesbians and tattoos and long hair a-plenty. They're just in a "don't ask don't tell" demi-monde netherworld.
Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#4Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…
Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world.
Governance is more important than one’s history when it come to success of a country.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#5Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…
Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world. Governance is more important than one’s history when it c…
Absolutely agree. There's a lot of "yes, but.." in this for me, but the simple economics are pretty clear: post colonial asian states like this do fantastically well.
Cost of housing in HK is going to be an embuggerance if they don't fix that, it may bifurcate into a more strong over/underclass imbalance. Taiwan is amazing but has thinner underpinnings now the US has demanded chip manufacturing moves to continental USA and the water supply issue is huge.
But your central point I agree with strongly: fix education, health, housing and provide at least some representation and you can do so much better than being a colonial outpost of somewhere else sucking value out.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#6Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…
> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.
Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as a serious worry or complaint.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#7Singapore is a strange outlier among successful democratic countries. There's always stories that are untold. For example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Chin_Siong?wprov=sfla1
Operation Spectrum untracing the conspiracy' https://share.google/2mRpZk3RGaYUKCRXS
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#8Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it) It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good. Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "ho…
> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence. Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as…
Eh, you're right. It's just a bugbear for me, tagging and social cohesion decline feels like a parallel, but it may be my projection. I'm in Crete right now and it's decaying beauty, no money for streetscape fixes, bad pavements and unending dissatisfaction written all over the marble walls.
I may be displaying my age. Feeling safe equates to being on the street, and unafraid. The tagging isn't the problem the social conditions which ignore it, maybe are.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
#9Singapore is a strange outlier among successful democratic countries. There's always stories that are untold. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Chin_Siong?wprov=sfla1 Operation Spectrum untracing the conspiracy' https://share.google/2mRpZk3RGaYUKCRXS
"He was one of the founders of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence"
Very democratic country.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)
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