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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

palladiummag.com

191–200 of 262 posts

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#191
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of non-residents are actually going there for a better pay in the first place.

Anecdotal of course but there are stories of foreign workers being promised one thing then receiving something else when they get there. It's difficult to complain when you can be sent home for doing so. This kind of employment arrangement which is very open to exploitation is not unique to Singapore. Where I live there are similar programs for foreign farm workers and the are also stories if exploitation. However th…

> Anecdotal of course but there are stories of foreign workers being promised one thing then receiving something else when they get there. It's difficult to complain when you can be sent home for doing so.

It's possible but very unlikely to be a problem over the long run with the means of communication nowadays. Everyone (even poor people) have access to mobile phones and can warn their peers/friends/communities if they happen to fall in such a trap.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in Singapore. I’m particularly familiar with how they do things. > No minimum wage > As a matter of national policy, MOM does not prescribe minimum wages for all workers in Singapore, whether local or foreign. Whether wages should increase or decrease is best determined by market demand and supply for labour. https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/work-permit-for-foreign-worker/is... > User pays healthcare Governm…

> Government offers a partially subsidised health insurance plan. But you have to apply and pay for it yourself. Small correction: MediShield Life is compulsory and automatic for Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

Ah yes. This is correct. That became mandatory after I left.

MedShield Life is still quite restrictive in what it covers though. Even with half the population having additional private insurance, about a third of medical expenditure is out of pocket.

A consistent point of controversy in Singapore is how much MediShield funds the government keeps in surplus reserve.

Total medical expenditure in Singapore is also suppressed somewhat by people choosing not to have treatment.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/some-kidney-patients-...

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is not a democracy. They have sham elections where the opposition party is only allowed to have media coverage by the single state run media channel for three weeks before the election. If your neighborhood votes for the opposition party you lose funding for things like public transportation. Lee Kuan Yew lives in a giant, gated, guarded compound in the middle of the most valuable real estate in the city. A…

As always, the truth is somewhere in between what you say and what the government portrays. 38 Oxley Road was owned by the Lees since the 1940s, well before any of them came into power, and well before property prices in Singapore exploded to the level they have now. It is also a stretch to call it "giant" or the "most valuable" piece of real estate, when there are hundreds of bigger houses in the nation. The number…

> There is some bias in state media coverage

Specifically the opposition candidates get limited time three weeks out from an election. Saying that people are getting more news from the internet is not 'the truth being somewhere in the middle'. Temasek Holdings controls the news paper (which also has a web site) the single local TV channel, the telecoms and the banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temasek_Holdings

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161228/22505536362/youtu...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/fake-news-law-sin...

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#194
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to type a disagree until you edited that last bit. I don't mind the authoritarianism, since the authorities seem very proactive towards encouraging foreign tech startups, but creativity is near zero and heavily sanitized, and most devs are poorly treated, I guess due to the massive glut of technical folks for the tiny population it has. Singapore feels so artificial, just like another Dubai. Going to Lond…

I also noticed that the foreign startups they lured in with their juicy incentives were not the better ones. Nonetheless they probably still believe that the same techniques that brought in Shell in the early days needed to be adapted for the "modern world". Despite throwing money at tech salaries are still poor. Everybody gets that money except the developers.

> Despite throwing money at tech salaries are still poor. Everybody gets that money except the developers.

That's just Asia. I don't think a developer is considered "high status" anywhere in Asia.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free market economics, low taxation, user pays healthcare, restrictive welfare entitlements, restrictive immigration, and no minimum wage. Did you just pull this out of your arse? I don't know if you need training in google fu or just plain ol calling out on bullshit. At least google what they do with healthcare and immigration (for a country smaller than nyc)

I used to live in Singapore. I’m particularly familiar with how they do things. > No minimum wage > As a matter of national policy, MOM does not prescribe minimum wages for all workers in Singapore, whether local or foreign. Whether wages should increase or decrease is best determined by market demand and supply for labour. https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/work-permit-for-foreign-worker/is... > User pays healthcare Governm…

I have extended family in Singapore. I can assure you that the approach is not some libertarian utopia and neither is it some oligarchic capitalistic system sucker.

It is designed to be practical and constantly adapt to reality.

Today, that means a mixed economy. That means basic human decency will be taken care of by government, the remaining is market driven.

This means housing, food subsidies, education and healthcare is readily made available by the government, not just through price controls. Look up property rights there.

That means high taxes on vehicles, use it to develop a world class mass transit system.

That means, lower taxes on foreign businesses to come operate in Singapore, no xenophobia shown to skilled workers (barring their geographic limitations). This has the consequence of raising high value domestic activity, thus providing locals jobs.

They cannot accept refugees because of size.

That means they absolutely want to be integrated with the outside world, because they realize they absolutely cannot produce everything. Again, can't have xenophobia.

That means lower income taxes because the government doesn't need more money. They have already ensured that cost of living (housing and healthcare) is so low that no one will be bankrupt with routine medical procedures or no insurance scams and medical codes that will suddenly no the covered.

Frankly, sometimes people forget how much work the government has put in there to actually make life so easy that the government doesn't need to be the frankenstein like US govt is.

It's a matter of approach. The government wants to take care of people, not leave them wondering if they will be covered in the next crisis.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if that's a fair judgement - It seems particularly endemic that it's almost a meme/stereotype in itself in Singapore; that all cab drivers are discontent with the government

Singapore is not a democracy. They have sham elections where the opposition party is only allowed to have media coverage by the single state run media channel for three weeks before the election. If your neighborhood votes for the opposition party you lose funding for things like public transportation. Lee Kuan Yew lives in a giant, gated, guarded compound in the middle of the most valuable real estate in the city. A…

The playing field is nowhere close to being level.

https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/soft-repression-the-struggle...

For more info: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/dispute-pm-lee-hsien-loong-not-mer...

No privacy either: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-singapore-crime-li/singapo...

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#197
post #88

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.

Has everything to do with conservative/liberal. Living with parents your whole life until marriage produces conservative non risk takers, and there is a conservative political policy behind it that prevents you from obtaining HBD housing until you marry.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#198
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US institutions have a huge issue with regulatory capture

Regulatory capture is profiteering off something other that value added. Which US institutions are profiting?

ISPs are probably the big bugbear. Constantly ranked as one of the worst industries by consumers, competition doesn't exist in many markets or is noncompetitive, and mergers have slowly brought back the edifice of Ma Bell back from the dead.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in Singapore. I’m particularly familiar with how they do things. > No minimum wage > As a matter of national policy, MOM does not prescribe minimum wages for all workers in Singapore, whether local or foreign. Whether wages should increase or decrease is best determined by market demand and supply for labour. https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/work-permit-for-foreign-worker/is... > User pays healthcare Governm…

I have extended family in Singapore. I can assure you that the approach is not some libertarian utopia and neither is it some oligarchic capitalistic system sucker. It is designed to be practical and constantly adapt to reality. Today, that means a mixed economy. That means basic human decency will be taken care of by government, the remaining is market driven. This means housing, food subsidies, education and health…

This comment reads half like PAP propaganda, and half simply uninformed.

> the approach is not some libertarian utopia

Well there’s no such thing as a real-world utopia. But Singapore, having the free-est market in the world is about as close as you could get.

> no xenophobia

Hmmmm... Chinese racism against pretty much everybody else has been a long standing issue in Singapore. Just go on any Singaporean job listing site and search for “must speak mandarin”.

> basic human decency will be taken care of by government

You can just look at the PAP’s website to see the mental gymnastics in this comment. Here are two of their four core values:

> Meritocratic

> A system that provides citizens with equal opportunities to progress, and for a person's contributions to be recognised and appreciated on the basis of merit.

> Self-reliant

> No one owes us a living. We will avoid creating the dependency syndrome a welfare state generates.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the world is a super simple place with super simple answers to seemingly complex questions. When I asked my friend which is better authoritarianism or democracy he told me the answer is complicated. I told him to look at the evidence: Almost Every civilization in history: egyptians, romans, greeks, China was more or less some form of authoritarian government. They all failed. Basically every single civiliza…

Lol. I think you should give US more time to fail? (I guess). It's only 260 so years. That's too short if you place it into human history.

It’s actually one of the oldest continuing governments :)

Current China is only ~70 years old for example. They have gone to great extents to erase their history, so they know they are young :)

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