Saturday, November 17, 2007
Welfare State
I mugged the WHOLE BLOODY DAY, and all I can finish is EC3303's Chapter 10.
Yes, ONE CHAPTER FOR ONE WHOLE DAY. ZZZZ.
This week's TIME magazine had a special report as its front page. Titled 'The Best Countries for Business', it listed the competitiveness ranking of different countries.
Glancing at the Top Ten, here lies the usual suspects:
1. USA
2. Switzerland
3. Denmark
4. Sweden
5. Germany
6. Finland
7. Singapore
8. Japan
9. U.K.
10. Netherlands
Of course, being a patriotic Singaporean, the first thing I had to note was Singapore's ranking. 7th, not too bad I guess, since I don't remember last year's ranking, and being first in Asia sure says something.
However, flipping through the pages, there was a special report on Sweden. Then I thought. Hmm wait wait. Scandinavian countries are 'notorious' for their high taxes, yet at the same time, their citizens the envy of many, having free education, free health care, and quite substantial unemployment benefits. How can they rank so high in the 'competitiveness' rankings?
If the rhetorics of the Singapore government are to be believed, any sign of 'welfare' will cripple the system, and make Singapore's economy crumble (welfare is a 'dirty' word, said PM Lee). So what made a country like Denmark succeed? Curious, I read on.
Well, I won't bore people with the details, but I'm rather impressed on how Denmark combated the forces of globalisation, yet at the same time, provided the above-mentioned welfare to its citizens.
This is totally opposite of Singapore's case, whereby unemployment benefit is zero, education and health care only gets dearer by the day (think of university fee hikes, hospital bills raising, and the fact that these are not excluded from the 7% (it's high when bills are large) GST.
It really led me to wonder, how so many people are so easily spoon-fed by the government's 'wonderful' logic, when shining examples like these Scandinavian countries are here for us to see.
But nonetheless, it served to remind me that why I wanted to study, and how i fell in love with economics in the first place. It's the desire to use my knowledge and expertise, in the hope of helping people improve their lives. I'm too impatient to do charity work, so I feel the best way I can help to improve the lives of people is actually through a more direct path, the economics path.
Too bad the article did not really offer a lot of insight into the Swedish system. However, it kind of gave me the reminder of my initial love for economics. I really hope that, one day, I'll be able to use my expertise, to help Singaporeans get more welfare in their lives, not needing to worry about escalating health care costs, retirement costs etc, especially the heartlander folks in Bedok I've seen my whole life. I hope the Singapore system, in one day, will be able to model itself after its Scandinavian counterparts, providing welfare to its citizens, while not compromising on its economy.
That's a big wish, of course. It might be unrealistic, but at least it gave me a spur for my 4 economics modules this semester.
It was Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand' last sem, now it's this.
Will I do as well? I hope so.
Fight on.
lowtide blogged @
10:39 pm
