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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

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Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#61

Post by pydry »

baybal2 wrote: post #52
pydry wrote: post #7

There are a few key things to bear in mind about Singapore's growth model and success: * The proximity of power to population because it is a tiny city state. Singaporean governance is under extreme pressure to be effective because if it fails it cannot hide. This is a systemic issue that can be seen all around the world and is probably why some countries moved their capitals AWAY from population centres (e.g. brazil…

> The reaction to the communists. Lee Kuan Yew didn't just annihilate the communists with coldstore, he tried to replicate their policies to maintain his stranglehold on power (note the resemblance of HDBs to soviet style housing, for instance). In a way, his lack of any real PAP itself started as a largely communist party. The later confrontation can be largely seen as two communist parties vying for power. And the…

Did you read the bit of the article that explicitly rejected that hypothesis?

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#62

Post by frank2 »

MrPowers wrote: post #23
baybal2 wrote: post #6

I lived 2 years in Singapore as an exchange student. The economic success of Singapore is a relatively new phenomenon, and it was largely a doing of Lee jr., not Lee sr. LKY was not well versed in matters of economics, and industry, and his forceful early industrialisation pushes failed miserably. For the bigger half of its history, Singapore was not that successful economically. The money came to Singapore when it l…

LKY ruled from 1959-1990. Singapore's GDP over that time grew at a 14% compound annual growth rate: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-gros... .

Part of that is from population growth. We can control for population growth by using GDP per capita: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-per-...

--which gives a rate of growth of 10.7%, and some of that will be inflation: the data is denominated in USD, which famously inflated rapidly in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Here is my math: solve for rate where e ^ (31 times rate) = 11828 / 428. (I am compounding continuously.)

ADDED. according to https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm, the dollar inflated by a factor of 4.39 between 1959 and 1990, giving an inflation-adjusted rate of 5.93%.

I wonder what South Korea's economy did during those years.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#63

Post by taktoa »

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.

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.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#64

Post by tim_sw »

ekianjo wrote: post #28
MrPowers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LKY ruled from 1959-1990. Singapore's GDP over that time grew at a 14% compound annual growth rate: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-gros... .

14% year on year when your GDP is close to zero to begin with is not that impressive, though.

Haven't grown up in a 3rd world country - I disagree with you. Most countries in SG's state at that time never made it past these initial stages of growth.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#65

Post by tim_sw »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #59
objektif wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You can still start from zero and remain there.

Because there's lots of low hanging fruit in terms of infrastructure, education, technology, etc. You don't really need to innovate, you can just copy other successful countries.

if it's so easy we would see more 3rd world countries advancing past their current state. At the time of independence, people were very pessimistic about Singapore's prospects, it just looks inevitable now given their rise.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#66

Post by hitekker »

baybal2 wrote: post #51
sfifs wrote: post #46

0ne of the pieces many articles discussing Singapore miss is actually the quality of the people in the Government officer corps. This i think makes a massive amount of difference in that a lot of what's planned in infrastructure and processes is much better thought out and executed than in other countries. It's the equivalent of the 10X programmer philosophy. This is achieved largely by the government sponsoring the…

> This is achieved largely by the government sponsoring the most promising/brilliant students to study in top Western universities and offering them quite competitive pay packages to join the government. And so do countless of other countries, some successful, some not. Much of Africa for example sends its brightest to Oxfords, and Harwards for exorbitant amounts of money. And there are counterexamples, very big ones…

> And there are counterexamples, very big ones at that. Countries where civil service is poorly paid

What are the successful countries where civil servants are not compensated fairly?

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#67

Post by baybal2 »

pydry wrote: post #61
baybal2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reaction to the communists. Lee Kuan Yew didn't just annihilate the communists with coldstore, he tried to replicate their policies to maintain his stranglehold on power (note the resemblance of HDBs to soviet style housing, for instance). In a way, his lack of any real PAP itself started as a largely communist party. The later confrontation can be largely seen as two communist parties vying for power. And the…

Did you read the bit of the article that explicitly rejected that hypothesis?

And if they do, I reject their hypothesis

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#68

Post by hitekker »

d3nj4l wrote: post #38
AniseAbyss wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to some Westerners there is only one road that leads to prosperity. Only Western culture and Western philosophy matters. Blame that Fukuyama- who by the way already backpedaled in the face of real history lol.

I don't think so. The rise of China especially has been acknowledged as a point against that, and even Fukuyama has acknowledged that : https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3003547/ch...

Fukuyuma's acknowledgement came two decades after the publication of "The End of History". Given how strongly he advocated for the inevitable triumph of his worldview, I think it's fair to label his admission in your article as backpedalling.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#69

Post by api »

sfifs wrote: post #46

0ne of the pieces many articles discussing Singapore miss is actually the quality of the people in the Government officer corps. This i think makes a massive amount of difference in that a lot of what's planned in infrastructure and processes is much better thought out and executed than in other countries. It's the equivalent of the 10X programmer philosophy. This is achieved largely by the government sponsoring the…

Interesting... I immediately contrast this with the American drive to make government work undesirable. This has led to a mass exodus of competence from government all the way to the top. Even the office of President is now sought by a bunch of third rate candidates: bland old bureaucrats, delusional ideologues unfit for the real world, and con men and narcissists like the current occupant of the office. Have we intentionally created an incompetent government?

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#70

Post by MrPowers »

frank2 wrote: post #62
MrPowers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LKY ruled from 1959-1990. Singapore's GDP over that time grew at a 14% compound annual growth rate: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-gros... .

Part of that is from population growth. We can control for population growth by using GDP per capita: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-per-... --which gives a rate of growth of 10.7%, and some of that will be inflation: the data is denominated in USD, which famously inflated rapidly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Here is my math: solve for rate where e ^ (31 times rate ) = 11828 / 428. (I a…

The macrotrends website says "Data are in current U.S. dollars", so the number I presented should be the real GDP growth rate. I think correcting for population growth is OK, but don't think your inflation calculation is correct.
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