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Singapore has a new prime minister, marking the end of the political dynasty founded by Lee Kuan Yew. I don't know much about this new guy, but it will be interesting to see for how much longer the People's Action Party can maintain its current level of centralized control with less charismatic leaders. Given the popularity of Lee around these parts, I figured others may have something to add about the stability of the current system or the future of everyone's favorite Southeast Asian city-state (no offense to Brunei).
Strongly believe Lee Quan Yew had general purpose intelligence that matched an average nobel/turing/fields medalist. His son (Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore PM from 2004-2024) was the undisputed top student at Cambridge Math. In another life, he would have been the favorite to win one of those prizes. Assuming an apple doesn't fall that far from the tree, Lee Quan Yew was likely to be in the same ballpark.
Those are some near impossible standards on IQ alone. Take Lee Kuan's GOATed public speaking and it's actually impossible.
The new guy has a standard college education, with a standard beaurocratic career. Reminds me of when cofounders retire and hand their company over to a caretaker MBA. I'm sure he is competent enough to execute. But, I doubt if he is competent+charismatic enough to innovate in the face of inevitable crises.
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One of my crazier ideas is that the US should pay the government of Singapore to run our health care system.
How does SG’s healthcare work?
If there’s ever a country I’d expect to have the dreaded “death panels”, it’d be this one, I guess.
The core financing system is savings-based - everyone in Singapore contributes 37% of their income (some of this is formally an employer contribution, but the incidence is on the employee) into a forced-savings fund. There is a complex formula which determines how much of that is allocated to the HSA "pot" (Medisave) but the effect is that most people end up with $1 less in their retirement pot for each $1 they spend on healthcare. This is backstopped by a government-subsidized catastrophic insurance fund (Medishield) and an indigent fund which is made deliberately unpleasant to claim from (Medifund).
But it looks like the secret sauce of how the system works is on the provider side - most Singapore hospitals are State-owned but commercially managed, and the Singapore government generally runs State-owned enterprises well. There is also a very deliberate class system - if a Singapore citizen stays in a class C ward (nightingale wards with no facilities and deliberately inferior food) the government picks up 65-80% of the bill and if they use a class B2 ward (similar but with 6-bed bays) the government picks up 50-65%. Class B1 patients get 4-bed bays, decent food, and phones and TV at the bedside and get 20% subsidy. Class A patients get a private room and pay full freight (including an extra $200 a night or so on top of class B1 to cover the room itself). Medisave and Medishield only cover the class B2 fees so you have to pay cash for B1 or A.
It is absolutely wild that anyone thinks that it is remotely sane to allocate this much to healthcare.
Its not specific to healthcare, its a retirement fund similar to superannuation which can be accessed early for healthcare or property financing. In any case healthcare costs are publicly posted and you can judge for yourself whether the unsubsidized rates are necessarily more onerous than other first world city state equivalents.
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I like it.
Specifically, I like it a lot better than the pseudo-stratification that we’re getting by relying on high deductible health plans.
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These seem like facially reasonable approaches that nonetheless would be politically untenable in the U.S.
Assuming quality of care was comparable, it shouldn't be controversial for the government to maintain lower standards for amenities at the facilities they're paying more for, and people willing to pay for the nicer stay are in contrast agreeing to foot more of the bill.
Now, in practice this is basically how Medicaid works for long term care, and I think we're going to see some massive birfurcation in end-of-life treatment between people who are reliant on Medicaid and people who actually saved up enough to cover cushier facilities. But it seems likely that U.S. citizens would flip their lid if the government declared that was exactly how the system was supposed to work, right on the tin.
I mean, the US is also not going to collect 37% of income either.
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Strictly speaking the dynastic quality of Lee Kuam Yew to Lee Hsien Loong is clouded by Goh Chok Tongs equally unremarkably competent 'seatwarmer' Prime Ministership of 14 years, which is no small quantum of years save for the long tenures of LKY and LHL to stand as contrasts. Detractors point to an early health scare in LHLs career as the reason for extending GCTs PM tenure, but other commentators note that LKY would not have allowed an incompetent son to be in a political leadership position. I leave it to readers to determine whether LHL is a nepo baby inheriting a position he did not earn or a man groomed from high school to helm a thankless position. I for one err towards LHL doing a fair job of unclenching his fathers grasped fist on Singapore only to replace it with his own everpresent guiding hand.
As for Lawrence Wong, it is fair to say that he is less charismatic than the other leaders we are used to, but to be frank Singaporeans do not really trust charisma. Old guard oratory opposition firebrands like Joshua Benjamin Jeyaratnam and Chee Soon Juan were unable to rally the populace to their cause of freeing Singapore from Lee Kuan Yews harsh view of society and the world, and modern sweet talkers like Jamus Lim are viewed by the polity as soft idealists who will fold when push comes to shove. In short, the relative lack of charisma is not a shortcoming for PM Wong. Why Singaporeans are unreceptive to charisma is likely a combination of successful government propaganda about being wary of false prophets but also a brutal calculus by even the educated population who view politics as something best left as a topic of complaint and not a cause to rally against.
One can readily observe that Singaporean politicians are overwhelmingly senior civil servants and military generals (who are basically civil servants in the Singaporean administration), and my personal view is that save for extremely few egoists the vast majority of politicians are simply guys who got asked by their boss to take up the role of politician. Singapores political administration, especially in the Lawrence Wong cabinet, is a cabinet of civil servants forced to the top. Is being forced to the top bad? For these men, yes it is. Singaporean civil servants often command far higher salaries than politicians, and the educational pedigrees of these politicians certainly puts paid to accusations of incompetence-blind nepotism. This chart below is a snapshot of the difference between Singapore and Malaysia: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Y5CGZO4eQBY/TQS1sT9gTrI/AAAAAAAAChQ/7X-cnkUP7yE/s1600/Singapore+Vs+malaysia+Politic+2007-Final.jpg
It is a common observation in the Admin Service - the elite civil servants, recipients of extremely competitive scholarships that allow Singaporean kids of even modest income to massively overrepresent at all elite universities - that it is better to rise to Director or Deputy Permanent Secretary of a major ministry, than it is to become a member of parliament. It is an easier career progression path and salaries are inevitably higher than junior politicians, much less the eye watering salaries admin service scholars can command when they jump to MBB or FAANG - typically 0.3m is the starting salary for jumpers who go straight to VP or higher, compared to Admin Service deputy directors (the typical jumping point) who command 0.15m at that juncture.
All this is to reinforce the point that for these men of means and brains, there are much better opportunities for self enrichment than being a politician. Between a blisteringly robust private sector and an extremely aggressive Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau which set its sights on a prominent minister, there is little opportunity for a politician to self enrich and better opportunities outside the cosy confines of the civil service-politocian pipeline. As an extreme example, one of the main Prime Minister prospectives, George Yeo, lost his seat in 2011 and 'retired' to be director of multiple major conglomerates both in Singapore and overseas. Rest assured that he is making 4x the money for 1/2 the effort as when he was a minister.
So what does this mean for Lawrence Wong? Well, it means that he is, in effect, a chump. His boss told him 'I need you to take over' and like a good boy he said 'yes sir'.
https://www.theonion.com/black-man-given-nations-worst-job-1819570341
(He isn't black, but the point still stands)
PM Wong is certainly not a deer in the headlight about to be run over. If not LW then others in the cabinet would have been picked, notably Chan Chun Sing who is bafflingly removed from the new executive core despite his immense popularity among everyone that worked with him - maybe looking like a 20 year old boy trying to fit into his dads suit harms him more than even the voting populace thinks. The Singapore civil service is, by this point, a well tuned machine churning out remarkably competent administrators and bureaucrats who have proven competent at navigating their institutions away from ruin. Perhaps that is the best placeholder government a society can hope for, a solid ship well maintained till a visionary captain finds his hands at the helm. Till then, the bureaucrat-politicians of Singapore will navigate as best they can, which honestly seems like a better deal than what the rest of us (globohomo retards time-capsuled in 2012 liberalism that we are) have to go through.
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