Sion
Senior Member
Maybe IMF thought average SG is rich because we burnt lots of these :bsmilie:
Singapore must be a super rich nation to burn that much money in the 7th month every year:
Maybe IMF thought average SG is rich because we burnt lots of these :bsmilie:
Cars cost double anywhere else... YET #1 and #2 selling cars here are BMW / MERCEDES..... I think the only country that has that. :what:
Yeah either ALL Rich or Suckers for STATUS Symbols.... e.g. The Uncle with Rolex !!
All countries regardless of developed, developing or under-developed will have rich and poor citizens. It is quite impossible to have equality in wealth. As the saying goes, 20% of the world population controls the wealth while the remainder is struggling. Law of Balancing.
The job of any government is to narrow the income inequality over time. It can also help those who fall through the safety net. Failure to do so in the long term will cause social unrest.
Back to the topic. Is Singapore a very rich country? Yes, it is. Let us look at the nation as a whole.
From a fish village with no natural resources, Singapore has transformed itself into a developed nation over the last 40 over years. Our neighbouring countries are jealous over our success. Look at Malaysia which has so much of resources but the country is mismanaged. As such, it remains to be struggling for most Malaysians. This explains why thousands of Malaysians flocked to Singapore to work on the daily basis. They earn much more than back at home.
Based on IMF 2013 report on the world richest countries, the ranking is as follows :
1. Qatar
2. Luxembourg
3. Singapore
4. Norway
5. Brunei
6. UAE
7. USA
8. Hong Kong
9. Switzerland
10. Netherlands
Can all of us see that Singapore is in no. 3 spot. As a matter of fact, Singapore is the richest country in ASEAN followed by Brunei. No need to talk about Brunei as all of us know that it makes its fortune through its natural resources - OIL. What do Singapore have? No oil, only has human capital. With that, we make it to the no. 3 spot in the world. No bad indeed.
Our foreign reserves are huge such as speculators were very wary to attack our Sing $ during the Asia Financial Crisis in 1997. Almost all of neighbouring countries got slaughtered by the speculators
It is indeed amazing how did Singapore become so rich. Temasek or GIC doing a job for investing overseas to reap so much returns or it is the citizens who work so hard to drive the economy to the current state. What do you think?
i just mind my own business and focus on my own rat
We can see now that the government's overriding objective - growing its portfolio and monetizing every citizen is causing hardship, widening income inequality, etc.
Real World.... when country is over inflated...
In Brunei, most fo the wealth are in the Royal family :bsmilie:
In SG, most of the wealth are control by a small group of people :bsmilie:
If the relax the rules of CPF and let people withdraw all their money at retirement. Our ranking will drop :bsmilie:
This prove that Zimbabwe is a "richer" country than SG. They have more trillionaires than SG.
SG must print more trillion dollars note to burn for next year 7th month :bsmilie:
Then everyone would fulfill their dream of becoming a trillionaire when they go to the afterlife :bsmilie:
Or ONE family / and ONE company..... :embrass: ;p
Maybe IMF thought average SG is rich because we burnt lots of these :bsmilie:
Owe so much $$$ to China leh...
• USA - at #7 in the list below Singapore? That is a joke. USA is the world's largest economy and the sole super power. USA has the most billionaires and the most millionaires in the world. Just think of how much it costs to operate their 10 active (+ 3 under construction) aircraft carriers for 1 day. Although we have our own capable SAF, Singapore depends on USA military protection in the Pacific region.
Owe so much $$$ to China leh...
IMF list 2013 is interesting because it depends on what basis they drew up the ranking.
Statistics and ranking are always a matter of what one wants to measure and/or give higher weightage to.
And thus statistical result can be skewed in one way or another.
1. Qatar
2. Luxembourg
3. Singapore
4. Norway
5. Brunei
6. UAE
7. USA
8. Hong Kong
9. Switzerland
10. Netherlands
Some random observations:
Qatar is notorious for ill treatment of foreign manual labour workers. Qatar won the right to host 2022 football world cup in a desert country. Hilarious big talk about airconditioning the whole football stadiums. To win the bid Qatar assured that it would build high-tech air-conditioned stadiums to keep them cooler. But it is an unsustainable and idiotic plan.
Luxembourg - rich and keeping low profile. investment management centre. Banking secrecy.
Brunei dependence on oil and gas. In about 20+ years Brunei's oil reserves are expected to run out. In about 30 years natural-gas will be depleted. Then what? Separately, the Kingdom announced going to impose Shariah law.
UAE - also notorious for ill treatment of foreign manual labour workers. One of the 7 emirates, Dubai got conned into a senseless building spree to feed the ego of the ruler. World's tallest building (in the end have to be paid for by another emirate) and silly real estate purposely built into the sea in the shape of an oil palm, when they got lots of land.
Norway - rich and keeping a low profile.
USA - at #7 in the list below Singapore? That is a joke. USA is the world's largest economy and the sole super power. USA has the most billionaires and the most millionaires in the world. Just think of how much it costs to operate their 10 active (+ 3 under construction) aircraft carriers for 1 day. Although we have our own capable SAF, Singapore depends on USA military protection in the Pacific region.
Hong Kong - not a country but a SAR and part of PRC. Very lucky because they do not have to worry about defense since PRC will look after that. Unfortunately a handful of mega rich developers have too much power, at the expense of the rest of Hong Kong people. Singapore almost learned their mickey mouse shoe box condominium units bad example but eventually came to our senses and realised how inhumane it was.
Switzerland - rich and keeping a low profile. Definitely above Singapore in wealth ranking.
Netherlands (Holland) - rich and keeping a low profile. Definitely above Singapore in wealth ranking.
Japan which is somehow not included in the list, has the 2nd most number of millionaire households.