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Thursday, September 9, 2010 By

Public trust of politicians highest in Singapore

Singapore is first in the world for quality of higher education, first in math and science and Singapore's politicians enjoy the highest public trust in the world.

That's according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011, released by the World Economic Forum today.

Singapore remains the world's third most competitive economy, overtaken by Sweden, which has jumped to second place from fourth. Sweden also has the third most trusted politicians in the world, after Singapore and Qatar. (See the list of countries with the most trusted politicians at the end of this post.)

Switzerland remains the world's most competitive economy for the second year running, while America, the former No 1 which dropped to second spot last year, is now down to fourth place. Swiss politicians are the 12th most trusted in the world.

Singapore finishes in the top 20 in almost every category except judicial independence, in which it is ranked 21st, and intensity of local competition, in which it is ranked 28th.

The report is based on national and international data as well as an executive opinion survey. In  Singapore, the business executives surveyed were selected with the help of the Economic Development Board. See How the Global Competitiveness Report is prepared.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010 By

Former US Labour Secretary deplores income gap

robert_reich Robert Reich, who was US Labour Secretary under President Bill Clinton, thinks the growing income gap is unhealthy for society. Market forces are increasing the income gap, but the market is a creation of public policy, he adds in his foreword to the book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.

Agreeing with the book's British authors, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, he says in the foreword:

But if wide inequality is socially dysfunctional, then why are certain countries, such as the United States, becoming so unequal? Largely because of the increasing gains to be had by being just a bit better than other competitors in a system becoming ever more competitive.

Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, shows the effect of globalization without using the word. He writes:

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 By

Singapore most globalized, open to new ideas, but…

If you are in Singapore, you may have already read in the papers that Singapore is the world's most globalized economy and Hong Kong second.

May I draw your attention to something else?

Singapore is more open to new ideas and new technology than any other nation except the Irish and the Scandinavians.

However, Singapore's "level of globalization is likely to remain flat for several years as a result" of last year's recession, says the Globalization Index report. You can download the Economist Intelligence Unit report from Ernst and Young, which commissioned it.

See the chart showing the top 25 countries on the Globalization Index, which measures the world's 60 biggest economies according to their openness to trade, investment, new ideas and technology, labour movement and cultural integration with the rest of the world.

Globalization_index 

Singapore gets the highest marks for trade, second highest for labour and culture, and less than only Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland for  technology.

America, home of Google, Apple and Microsoft, gets lower marks for technology for the same reason it does less well in trade.

The Globalization Index does not rank countries according to their share of the world trade, investment and technology industry.

Countries are ranked instead according to their trade, investment, technology, and labour movement relative to their own GDP.

Singapore's trade-to-GDP ratio was 443.2 in 2006-2008, according to the World Trade Organization. America's, in contrast, was only 28.7. (Hong Kong's was 406.5.)

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Thursday, January 21, 2010 By

Singapore 2nd freest economy, 1st in labour freedom

Singapore remains the second freest economy in the world but ranks first in labour freedom in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. Labour freedom is used by the index to mean freedom to hire and fire workers. Singapore, described as "a nominally democratic state" in the report, scored 98.9 out of 100 for labour freedom and got an overall score of 86.1.

Hong Kong remained the world's freest economy with an overall score of 89.7 but only 87.4 for labour freedom. Australia is ranked third followed by New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, America, Denmark and Chile. You can download the full report here.

Singapore was ranked the second least corrupt country in the world, with a score of 92 out of 100, just one place behind New Zealand, which scored 93.

Economic_freedom_index

Singapore got its lowest marks for financial freedom, scoring only 50 out of 100, as "the government seeks to maintain the domestic bank share of deposits above 50 percent".

What the Index of Economic Freedom stands for is freedom for companies and investors to do business as they please — within the rule of law. The less the government regulation, the greater the economic freedom, according to the index, which supports limited government and freedom from corruption. It does not support heavy government spending. That is one reason why America dropped from sixth to eighth place — because of the economic bailouts by the Obama administration. The report says:

The U.S. government’s interventionist responses to the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 have significantly undermined economic freedom and long-term prospects for economic growth.

Total government expenditures… are relatively high and rising rapidly. In the most recent year, government spending equalled 37.4 percent of GDP.

That is why America got a low score of 58 out of 100 for government spending.

Singapore, in contrast, with government spending equalling just 12.5 percent of the GDP, according to the report, got 95.3 out of 100.

The index gives each country a score of 0 to 100 on 10 counts — business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government size, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption and labour freedom. The 10 component scores are then averaged to give an overall economic freedom score for each country.

Here is the full report on Singapore:

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Thursday, January 14, 2010 By

Foreigners boost Singapore’s growth, lower productivity

The Wall Street Journal has come out with the best piece I have read on Singapore for a long time:

Singapore_foreign_influence_wsj

By some estimates, a third or more of Singapore's 6.8% average annual growth from 2003 to 2008 came from the expansion of its labour force, primarily expatriates, allowing Singapore to post growth more commonly associated with poor developing nations.

At the same time, though, foreign workers have driven up real estate and other prices and made the city-state's roads and subways more congested. Their arrival has kept local blue-collar wages lower than they would be otherwise, exacerbating Singapore's gap between rich and poor.

Some economists say the most damaging effect of the immigration is that the influx appears to be putting a lid on productivity gains, as manufacturers rely on cheap imported labour instead of making their businesses more efficient. Labour productivity, or output per employee, fell 7.8% in 2008 and 0.8% in 2007—a phenomenon that could eventually translate into lower standards of living.

The Wall Street Journal graphic is invaluable.

Filed Under: Singapore Tagged With: , , , ,
Friday, May 6, 2005 By

Tony for the third time

Labour is heading for a historic third term, no thanks to Tony Blair. Commentators are  blaming him for Labour losing a lot of seats. Its majority is expected to be cut down to around 70 seats this time, a big  loss compared with the thumping 160-plus majority it won in the 2001 elections. And the losses are blamed on the Iraq war. Commentators keep saying it was an unpopular war which cost Labour dearly in the elections. People who might have voted Labour cast their ballots for the Liberal Democrats, who consistently opposed the war.

But any election is also a question of leadership: whether the voters trust their leader. And Blair has been losing trust. The Conservative leader Michael Howard called him a liar.  Blair did mislead the people — maybe not deliberately — when he claimed Saddam possessed weapons of destruction.

And he continues to blow hot and cold over his future. He went into the elections saying it will be his last term. He promised to hand over power before the end of the term. He hinted he would make way for Chancellor Gordon Brown to be the next Labour prime minister.  But later he said he intended to serve a full term.  Such hankering for office is natural for a politician, of course, but it does raise questions about Blair’s trustworthiness.

He may be faithful to Cherie and faithful to Bush, but in British politics, he is the Artful Dodger.

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