[frenchieinsg]

In Singapore Herman Cain would be a PAP MP :P

I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). I guess we'll know in 50 years when archives get declassified.

At the end of the day, we can't know what the opportunity cost of having all the talented politicians join PAP for career reasons is, simply because there is no equivalent anywhere in the world. Other small nations either do not have a strong Federal government (Switzerland), have a strong multi party system (Israel) or are controlled by outside interests (Hong Kong)...

[crdoconnor]

>I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal

"In 2010, BAE Systems pled guilty to a United States court, to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales."

The China, the West and Singapore all enforce rulings against corruption sometimes... and sometimes not. I don't think you'll see any of the corrupt Indonesians who stash their money here get prosecuted for instance. They're even better protected by the financial secrecy laws than oligarchs in London are.

>In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely).

Basically because they pay better here. That's good in some ways. In other "yes minister" countries they actually supply a state pension to poor people over the age of 65 instead of forcing them to scrape shit out of a food court toilet in the last pathetic years of their lives.

It's a country of polar opposites. The greatness of the country depends entirely upon your position in its class system, though. Based upon all of your answers, I'd say you're pretty far up, and believe me, I can well understand why you love it here.

[frenchieinsg]

Well, I'm on an S2 pass (so not that high) but I know people from 2k/month to 30k/month, and they're all pretty happy - in particular, the lower classes appear considerably happier than those in the UK, France, the US, and a half dozen other countries I've lived in. It's irrelevant to the discussion, though.

The idea of money origin mattering to another nation state is a red herring, in this case. If somebody comes to a Swiss private bank with USD 500 million, unless the Swiss government has an agreement with the country from which the individual comes regarding money laundering, it's none of its business how the money was obtained. Refusing "corrupt Indonesian money" via Singapore law forbidding banks to take it, would be Singaporean interference in Indonesian sovereign affairs. Not good. Terrorism is a separate issue - you want to avoid terrorists using your banks, but that's not a problem for the bank, it's a problem for your foreign intelligence service (and in practice, is probably handled by larger agencies like the NSA via collaborative defense agreements).

Regarding food court retired workers, I prefer this system to the one in the West, which encourages recklessness with savings instead of responsibility, and will end spectacularly badly considering demographic trends. A state pension (i.e. redistribution) is also an infringement of the rights of savers to their own savings. But if we go down that path, I'm almost certainly philosophically the opposite of you (by putting the individual's rights before the "greater good") and we'll never agree, even if I understand where you might be coming from.

[lazylizard]

but what exactly is 'this system'? apparently a former president asked to see the books but was denied access? how does anyone know if its all bullshit? maybe 'this system' is already bankrupt? who can tell if they wont show?