Singapore 101 continued

[Mosiah]

Something which you should know, but which I purposely did not mention, when I said Singapore ministers drive their own vehicles - Govt. ministers make over a US$1M a year. For some of them, this is a fall in their standard of living as many come into politics as wealthy businessmen to begin with. So, yes, driving their own cars may not be a big deal to them.

The combined effect of previous wealth and good salaries as ministers means that corruption is almost unheard of among Singapore ministers. What are you going to bribe them with? They are already rich! And, when discovered, corruption is dealt with swiftly and harshly.

The other thing about their ministers, the vast majority are very educated, many with advanced degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, not to mention the very highly rated Nanyang Technological University in Singapore itself. So, many are experts in their field, not only privately, but as ministers.

[HL]

QUOTE: "The other thing about their ministers, the vast majority are very educated, many with advanced degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, not to mention the very highly rated Nanyang Technological University in Singapore itself. So, many are experts in their field, not only privately, but as ministers".


Seem to me every other minister in Jamaica is called Doctor this and Doctor that. (You know them well). Jamaica seems to be super-saturated with PhD's in lots of leadership positiions.

Why the continued backwardness and poor decision making skills?

X-plain.

Thanks in advance

[Peter R]

QUOTE: "The other thing about their ministers, the vast majority are very educated, many with advanced degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, not to mention the very highly rated Nanyang Technological University in Singapore itself. So, many are experts in their field, not only privately, but as ministers".


Seem to me every other minister in Jamaica is called Doctor this and Doctor that. (You know them well). Jamaica seems to be super-saturated with PhD's in lots of leadership positiions.

Why the continued backwardness and poor decision making skills?

X-plain.

Thanks in advance

how about this hypothesis... they dont earn $1m us to behin with so they make decisions that are beneficial to self?

or this they are lazy and see the position as a get rich quick scheme?

or in spite of the titles they are really stupid?

[Exile]

Probably a combination of all of the above...
It's hard to manage without money and seems to me all the ministries seem cash strapped or very low budget...either that or they wasting the money...

[HL]

how about this hypothesis... they dont earn $1m us to behin with so they make decisions that are beneficial to self?

or this they are lazy and see the position as a get rich quick scheme?

or in spite of the titles they are really stupid?

It's quite interesting how the local forum political pundits shy away. Even the original poster.

I would rank your #3 answer as the primary reason:

[Exile]

Politicians are not stupid at all..selfish and ego-centric but truthfully most of them are fairly smart people BUT they make stupid decisions justified by political party-line and/or malfeasance.

[Hortical]

They are smart people, certainly not smart in governing. As HL said, we have nuff PhDs, MDs, LLBs etc, and we have the clueless gangs of gordon house!

[Islandman]

I agree with you. I have seen enough successful professionals and businessmen who have been unimpressive in politics and government to realize that it is a totally different game.

Bringing real, sustained change to a broken and corrupt political culture is NOT easy and takes serious personal sacrifice. Anybody who thinks it is easy to fix should go give it a try and see how long they last.

[Islandman]

I enjoy listening to this NPR podcast that reports economic stories from around the world. One such story i listened to with interest recently was this one, about an ambitious/far-fetched plan to try to change the way things are in Honduras.

Can a poor country start over?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/...try-start-over

[Exile]

Their fishermen seem to have found a way...to 'fish' in our waters, empty lobster pots, relatively undisturbed...

[Assasin]

sometimes people underscore the hard work it takes to be elected by most politican. However most have to have egos. I have said parties will not change politics, only the people can. Hold them accountable. The fact is what is one man pork is another man's benefit. This is why corruption is so hard to stop.

[Islandman]

Exactly. Sure on some rare occasions a special leader may arise and change history but it is not something that happens often and sitting around waiting for that person to come down from the mountains on a white horse is not a plan.

[TDowl]

Simple, they they don't have the gumption to spin Singapore on the negative side.

[Assasin]

or maybe the people won't let them.

[Mosiah]

Singapore has quite a few negatives, btw. It's not all rosy over there. In some aspects, what they consider a problem, we would love to have it. On the other hand, we might find it very hard to deal with some things that they take for granted and view as necessities!