Yep
end of he 80’s was the end of the fun as they clamped down on the population knowing the son would take over one day.
Singapore could do with LKY and his cohort today.
They just keep doing the same as before and that plan no longer works, nobody can admit there is an issue so make no changes.
None of the GLC’s gov linked companies make any money any more but its still a large part of the economy.
Management never had to compete so they have zero skills in that area.
Singapore’s push to have everyone a degree holder by rote learning has not made employable people made worse by convincing them they are the smartest person in the room on day 1 of their first job.
They ignored blue collar industry’s as they just fill them with the cheapest from overseas. Thats SGD1000/month work. Cant live in Singapore on that.
Now with the govs aim to have the highest rents in the world is causing businesses to leave.
Singapore is a low productivity country so the workers cant support high local costs.
Singapore has to allow verbal and not in English car/truck/machinery and port boat license tests by totally illiterate people.
Where else in the world can you still buy manual clock card machines and cards so somebody has to collect them and type somewhere. Hi tech, NOT!
I was shocked when I came here and walked into an engineering shop.
Same everywhere in the world except here there were as many people upstairs in the office as on the floor. What do they do…ok clock cards are one job.
Walk into a car repair shop, 99% have no electronic recording, workers record nothing, boss makes the bill.
( manufacturers of course wouldnt put up with that so dealers are electronic)
Coupled with a rising SGD its killing everyone.
( debt to GDP up to 170%)
Seems like LKY made one generation wealthy but the long term plan is a failure for the majority of Singaporeans now. Cost of living and jobs are the big issues.
Lol pay lots get a hand out back…
The generation that built the reserves will never benefit from them as the gov needs every cent to earn interest to keep the lights on according to the last PM.
Its reflection on the economic management, people are struggling.
Its not a dividend from a large profit
Just like a low birth rate
Its 100% all about the economy and how the voters react to it.
If the question was to me then the short answer is that it has been home for most of my life.
I first visited Singapore in 1959 when it was still a British colony. It was also the year it got internal self government, with PAP as the governing party and Lee Kuan Yew as it’s Prime Minister.
Being on my first ship and at the tender age of 15, I knew little about politics, nor was that uppermost on my mind. (I turned 16 while we were on the “Singapore trade” for Shell for abt. 3 mths.in late 1959)
I visited Singapore several times after that, while serving on WWL ships on the Europe - Far East run, from 1960 until 1962. (Two call evert roundtrip of 4-6 mths.)
After schooling and doing my national service in Norway I returned to Singapore in mid-1967. Now on Norwegian ships in local trade.
I started to regard Singapore as home in 1967 and learnt more about local and Singapore history, incl. of history of PAP for the years from 1954 to independence in 1965:
That is pretty much also the history of Singapore in those early years of struggle for independence and against the Communist influence that was strong then.
Living in Singapore in those early years of independence and seeing both the good, the bad and the ugly of the period when the British forces pulled out, the changed that happened and the development from a struggling 3rd world country, with no natural resources, to today’s clean, safe and prosperous metropolis:
Makes me proud to have been a tiny part if it, especially in shipping in the early days.
PS> Looks like US State Department didn’t find all that much to criticize in their 2022 report.
As for the old report by Gook Aik Suan, all I can say is; never heard of him.
Yes a great period to live in Singapore as it grew in prosperity with all the things that grew with that.
Problem now is the plan has stayed at, we tax low and use cheap workers.
Productivity never grew which is wealth of the locals, now a huge and ever widening of the wealth gap.
The old plan where the gov was involved in many industries and did well due to the low cost base ( cheap workers) has run its course and nobody knows how to compete as they never had to learn.
Gdp per capita sounds large but its due to trading commodities in huge volumes.
The $ figure per capita his 3 times the average wage as proof of that.
If the debt is based on the output of the average worker, its a scary number and growing.
The history of Singapore is something to applaud but the current and future outlook is not great and there seems to be no plan.
I must admit that when I saw the way Vietnam was advancing I could see a bumpy road ahead. Singapore has an advantage with its legal and financial regime with the changes in HongKong.
Singapore has always been a good place for the wealthy to run to but there is no money in that for the country, just propaganda for the locals to swallow.
Malaysia also now woken up for he second time and data centers are now running there.
Not to mention huge expansion in the whole chain of chip manufacturing.
All happening with third world currency, rent and wages.
Nobody s talking about history, the rest of us live in todays reality which is the topic:
But the country also has a whopping ratio of debt to gross domestic product — around 170 per cent. By the end of the year it will be the third most indebted nation on the planet. In the link… https://www.ft.com/content/0ea2bcc4-1378-4dec-81af-0fb688edda31
Imagine the interest bill??
Perhaps we all need to living in another reality on Bugs happy pills?
“When economists examined Singapore’s net national debt, they discovered that the country owes nothing at all.
Since the Singaporean government’s assets outweigh its debts, the country has a net debt-to-GDP ratio of 0%”.
That farcial, it still has interest payments to make
Its a figure they invented to sound good.
They owe money to others, they borrowed another $90 billion the other day.
Australia got no net debt, lets just value all the minerals in the ground with valuations the government supplys.
The money we borrow got nothing to do with running the country its just for infrastructure, trust us we’re the government.
VAT going up is because we are doing well…lol
Singapore no FOI act, all docs secret.
and you think that applies to business, lol you really have no clue
Did you give business advice to
Kodak
Borders
Blockbuster
etc
The issue in Singapore is they keep doing the same thing.
Attracting new business is everyones game today with a promise of cheap labour and low tax.
Comment I get from people shifting businesses out is doesnt matter if we still got a zero tax incentive its still too expensive to be here.
SIA has had the floor wiped by other low cost base airlines doing the same thing but local cost for all the GLC’s keeps going up.
( former) PM stated ( online about the reserves during the last President election) no GLC makes any money any more like they used to so we cant spend any of the reserves as we cant replace that money.
Before the 380 came in LKY said SIA makes no money and probably never will in the future, as he was brokering the industrial action about pilots that wanted more money to fly the 380.
Father and Son agree it seems
( I do agree SIA needs to exist for gov control of tourists and PR)
Stock market dead as nothing makes any money
Lots of issues caused by this…they keep they old model on Buggs advice.
Remind us all what happened to the RR engine factory that opened in 2015?
