Singapore’s economic stimulus budget
Yes, Singapore has been hit hard by the worldwide credit crunch. It started when taxi drivers and other workers lost their shirts when AIG went under – so low are the interest rates at Singapore’s banks that people are encouraged to buy insurance policies with pay-out plans, and annuities, and many people had trusted the American brand. Well, it’s going to take a while to rebuild that brand, clearly.
Ex-pats are heading home in droves; traffic is down at the ports; unemployment is up. Cruelest measure of all – the gelato-stand chain we love has had to close five of its ten outlets, alas.
So what’s the Singapore government doing about this? It’s actually dipping into its extremely impressive reserves and spending money to keep stores open and people employed.
In January of this year the Government controlled reserves in excess of $100 billion (Singapore dollars): it created an quickly implemented a budget that will spend $20.5 billion of that to help out its citizens. Landlords and mall owners will get tax rebates so they can pass lower rates to their renters; threatened retirement savings at troubled banks such as DBS and USB are now guaranteed safe by the government; bus, train and taxi fares will decrease!
Was this rational decision imposed by a brutal dictatorship that brooked no opposition? No, the finance minister appeared on TV, in Parliament, on various panels and in many venues to argue for his decisions. There were a few people trying to tweak his plan, but their ideas were presented with civility, not as ideological all-or-nothing screechfests. And the minister just as civilly explained that he had tried his best to incorporate these ideas into his package, but that his emphasis was on the preservation of jobs, jobs, jobs.
What can I say? It’s a single-party system where the party in power shows every sign of being accountable and responsible. No trickle-down or voodoo economics, no fuzzy math, no complacency.