5 best sentences on economics

[Windsor]

why are you comparing past and present???

can Pele or Eusebio or George Best generate the kind of revenue and cable viewership that beckham?

not just beckham but mario ballotelli, messi and cristiano ronaldo also can ???

technological changes allow the best performers in a given field to serve a bigger market and thus reap a greater share of its revenue. ....

go read this paper "The Economics of Superstars” http://www.jstor.org/pss/1803469

and this book saving "capitalism from the capitalists" http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Capitalists-Unleashing-Opportunity/dp/0609610708

this is also a good book ... Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!

http://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Exposing-Poor-Decent/dp/0195189779

You believe that reading those books will reveal and give answers to solve the current problems of the runaway effects of capitalism? Why?

Comparing the past to the present is because from there we can understand, without reading tons of books that will take a lifetime to go through, and still cannot get a clue as to what are the problems that beset the world. Like the extinct deer specie that has antlers that grew and grew, one day the antlers grew too large that the head cannot support it leading to the demise of that species. And so with capitalism and the greed that will unbalanced the world economy, not only the politics of envy that you so fondly like to quote. Why do you think there are so many nations now in deep shit and you still believe that what you expound is the best model, i.e. to repress the poor until they revolt?

 

[brocoli]

There are many excesses in the developed world's welfare and support structure and I will the first to see these gone. But base acceptable standards must exist.

Here is a good example that came up for discussion some 10 months ago in a local think tank setup.

A hawker 20 years ago with hard work and with a little bit of risk taking is able to move to a bigger shop, possibly a private shophouse and eventually buy it. He might be even be able to set up a few branches.

20 years later, in view of Singapore's limited land stock, private commercial properties for such an enterprising hawker will likely to be in hands of GLC such as Mapletree, Fraser Properties etc. The rent will be very high and the tenure no longer 5 + 5 + 5 but 2+2. The hawker choice is limited to rundown properties that are now poorly maintained, low traffic or patronised by consumers with little spending money such as Katong Shopping Centre.

So who owns these properties that are able to generate profits. Increasingly you will find that opportunities are in the hands of a few. If we don't check it, we return to feudalism but with a slant - Lords who wear Gucci, holiday in the Bahamas and visit the Grand Cayman to move their money around. Lew Syn Pau ex-PAP MP who was charged in court for corporate fraud and acquited was using offshore entities to make loans and retain profits without taxation. I am trying to be simplistic.

This country does not belong to the PAP or its cronies. Do get fooled by them claiming that a hardworking individual has all the opportunities available to them to advance just like any other individual. Thats bullshit.

An ACJC boy who had to repeated his A levels, went on to take an OMS scholarship and is now in the elite Admin Service. What about his classmates who passed the first time around and had better grades than him. His was an interesting case. His father was a Perm Sec and former Head of Civil Service. How did a chap who did not clear his A levels in a top rung eventually end up in the Civil Service Elite.

Yong Pung How's daughter was given home tuition by a PHD chap and the tuition fees would easily pay for someone salary. She is now a Perm Sec. Can the average Singaporean able to get those kinds of leverage and resources. Are we all on the same playing field.

I came on this forum more than a decade ago because I was aware of these abuses. I could have easily sipped on my Pina Colada while having my bacon and eggs and see Singaporeans swallow the hard work crap. Only dumb think that Singapore is wide open to anyone who wants to work hard. Tell that to the engineer who was retrenched at the ageof 40 and now drives a taxi. Tell that to the office manager who has to downgrade to keep things going.

Are you aware that there is company called Kwa Geok Choo and Co that sounds quite innocuous. Let me just say that it is a real company and it does make noodles in a small flatted factory in Lower Delta Road. We are not talking about a typical family run business with kids coming back from school to help serve food. If this company calls Mapletree, it is not going tell them that they are cooking wanton noodles for lunch and the top dogs in Mapletree are certainly going to pick up the phone and listen.

How did a CCC Chairman get development rights in Sentosa without going thru the official tender process. When someone tells you he is clean, are you going to accept it?

Look scoobal, i am defending capitalism and the market based price mechanism.... I am not defending cronyism or nepotism... they shouldnt be confused and lumped together.....

if you bother to read what I post above on Capitalism, you will see what I mean, the main enemy of capitalism are the incumbents, those who already have an established position in the marketplace and would prefer to see it remain exclusive.

Throughout its history, the free market system has been held back, not so much by its own economic deficiencies, as Marxists would have it, but because of its reliance on political goodwill for its infrastructure. The threat primarily comes from two groups of opponents. The first are incumbents, those who already have an established position in the marketplace and would prefer to see it remain exclusive.

It is from this book "saving capitalism from the capitalists" http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Capitalists-Unleashing-Opportunity/dp/0609610708

I am on the same side as most here.... I know the PAP is evil, doesnt mean that capitalism is wrong.. there is alot of misunderstanding and confusion around...

socialism will just a bigger and even worse form of PAP... dun you understand???

You believe that reading those books will reveal and give answers to solve the current problems of the runaway effects of capitalism? Why?

Comparing the past to the present is because from there we can understand, without reading tons of books that will take a lifetime to go through, and still cannot get a clue as to what are the problems that beset the world. Like the extinct deer specie that has antlers that grew and grew, one day the antlers grew too large that the head cannot support it leading to the demise of that species. And so with capitalism and the greed that will unbalanced the world economy, not only the politics of envy that you so fondly like to quote. Why do you think there are so many nations now in deep shit and you still believe that what you expound is the best model, i.e. to repress the poor until they revolt?

see above.... its sad to see this kind of anti intellectualism and misunderstood viewpoint...... greed drive the world economy...

i recommend this book ....The Road to Serfdom by nobel laurate Friedrich von Hayek .....
http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook43pdf.pdf

socialism has been tried and failed in china, soviet..... the keynesian variant is draggin all of us and europe down as well now....

 

[Windsor]

Look scoobal, i am defending capitalism and the market based price mechanism.... I am not defending cronyism or nepotism... they shouldnt be confused and lumped together.....

if you bother to read what I post above on Capitalism, you will see what I mean, the main enemy of capitalism are the incumbents, those who already have an established position in the marketplace and would prefer to see it remain exclusive.



It is from this book "saving capitalism from the capitalists" http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Capitalists-Unleashing-Opportunity/dp/0609610708

I am on the same side as most here.... I know the PAP is evil, doesnt mean that capitalism is wrong.. there is alot of misunderstanding and confusion around...

socialism will just a bigger and even worse form of PAP... dun you understand???



see above.... its sad to see this kind of anti intellectualism and misunderstood viewpoint...... greed drive the world economy...

i recommend this book ....The Road to Serfdom by nobel laurate Friedrich von Hayek .....
http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook43pdf.pdf

socialism has been tried and failed in china, soviet..... the keynesian variant is draggin all of us and europe down as well now....

Let us not drag socialism into this. You are muddying the water. Why do you think that unbridled greed without any form of control is good? Capitalism in itself is greed with no limit. A giraffe cannot grow it's neck too long otherwise it too will face extinction and capitalism is the neck of that giraffe.

 

[GoldenDragon]

How did a CCC Chairman get development rights in Sentosa without going thru the official tender process. When someone tells you he is clean, are you going to accept it?

Ho Bee's Chua Thian Poh, WKS's right-hand man.

When he makes $ contributions, it is always politically motivated. Never altruism.

 

[scroobal]

Yes and anyone buying the property is eligible for PR. How lose money?

Ho Bee's Chua Thian Poh, WKS's right-hand man.

When he makes $ contributions, it is always politically motivated. Never altruism.

 

[GoldenDragon]

Yes and anyone buying the property is eligible for PR. How lose money?

Wonder if Wing Tai's Cheung Wai Keung, also from WKS's GRC, enjoys any such benefits.

 

[scroobal]

This guy is quite odd. Never ask favours and always ready serve public service. The family is well respected. Also very loaded.

 

[Leongsam]

How did a CCC Chairman get development rights in Sentosa without going thru the official tender process. When someone tells you he is clean, are you going to accept it?

The examples you cite aren't the evils of capitalism. They're the sins of cronyism and downright crimes.

The scenario you describe would be like a world cup competition where the referees are on the take and some teams have to sleep in leaky tents while others are assigned 5 star accommodation.

Capitalism needs rules just like a football competition does. As long as the rules are enforced fairly, the team that wins should be the one that has the best skills. The govt's job should not be about redistributing wealth. It should be about ensuring that nobody cheats.

How much interest would the World Cup generate every 4 years if the top teams had their points deducted and awarded to the weaker teams in order to "even out the competition"?

 

[Leongsam]

Another example.... sammyboy.com is in competition with TOC, tremeritus, many quality blogs etc for viewership.

TOC romps way ahead of the competition because of superior content, better server that never breaks down.. never has database error messages, nicer format, faster loading pages etc.

In a Laissez Faire capitalist system, I have to work very hard to catch up. If I fail, I starve to death so I buy a better server.. put in a lot more effort to boost traffic.. become a better host... more helpful... more polite....more hardworking. The consumer - YOU.. benefits from the competition.

In a socialist welfare system, I won't bother. The authorities will help me along by diverting 45% of TOC traffic to my site. I can sit back.. continue with my crap server that breaks down every night at peak hours.. continue to abuse my members and couldn't give a shit about people who are stuck in moderation for months without knowing why. Why bother making the site better when I get a "traffic handout" from TOC thanks to the cyberspace govt.

TOC, who have been streets ahead of the rest of us, start wondering whether it's worth it to improve things further when any additional traffic they gain gets taken away and diverted to the crap sites like sammyboy.com run by a lazy good for nothing host. The team at TOC decide that the effort simply isn't worth it. Why go the extra mile when 45 out of the 100 new hits they get at their site are diverted to competing sites of lower quality. They pack up to do something else with their lives in an environment where hard work is rewarded rather than punished.

So which system is better?

 

[SibeiKing]

If I fail, I starve to death

You din't fail. What if you had? Capitalism thrives on survival of the fittest. The problem with it is the hordes it leaves behind. history was debunked here as being for the slow. But society after society, we just don't learn. Even the weak when cornered, have always changed the tides. Greed is simply Mankind's natural instinct. Socialism has never been the answer either.

 

[SibeiKing]

why are you comparing past and present???

can Pele or Eusebio or George Best generate the kind of revenue and cable viewership that beckham?

not just beckham but mario ballotelli, messi and cristiano ronaldo also can ???

technological changes allow the best performers in a given field to serve a bigger market and thus reap a greater share of its revenue. ....

go read this paper "The Economics of Superstars” http://www.jstor.org/pss/1803469

and this book saving "capitalism from the capitalists" http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Capitalists-Unleashing-Opportunity/dp/0609610708

this is also a good book ... Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!

http://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Exposing-Poor-Decent/dp/0195189779

Why do I have a feeling you are a NUS academia? A good 5-10 years in the private sector and I promise you will be tossing away those citations.
Capitalism or socialism, both ideologies filled with assumptions.
Ever heard of "If you switch the positions of an economist and a weatherforcaster, you might get the correct prediction"?

 

[Leongsam]

You din't fail. What if you had?

If I fail, this site closes shop.

 

[eatshitndie]

the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. welfarism will eventually morph into social dependency and addiction for more welfare, despite all its merits. case in point. place: corcoran, california. time: today. a single mother of six, maria, decides to have the seventh baby, as the new kid will bring an additional usd505 (under the child welfare act) into the monthly family income. total income for this family will increase to usd3535 per month with full tax exemption. they also receive a housing program handout of usd1500 per month for rent. not bad for a family of 8 in a bad economy, especially when mom spends the lion's, correction.... lioness' share of household purchases, food, beverage, correction.... liquor, clothes and shoes.

oh forgot, she goes to vegas too, and splurges thousands at various casinos and swanky shopping malls. vegas is not too far from corcoran. she hardly pays the full amount for rent, as rent for a 3-bedroom is less than usd1200, usd300 less than full allowance. she pockets the difference, and to defer payments sometimes offer extra-curricula services to the landlard, who is often of indian or paki extraction in such remote towns. these men have needs too. and many of them, as immigrants, apply for welfare too. there's a monthly allowance of usd600 waiting for them at the nearest state welfare office. pinoy and hispanic immigrants are more up to date; they receive such monthly benefits via direct deposit in a bank account.

if you have online banking, even better and faster to cash your allowance. many spend it all at the nearest casino, card club or bingo hall. the more astute will save it up for mortgage or their kid's college. maria has to decide today. seventh baby or try her luck for seven heaven at vegas. she's not pregnant yet, but must find a man with needs and goods, just like she did with her other sex, i mean six. all her kids have different fathers, except two. he must had been so horny he came back for more. but just one more, uno mas, and that was it. she weighs over 300 lbs, a baby production machine. all her kids are within 1 year of each other. and she's only 23.

oh forgot again. remember the lioness' share on food and beverage? her kids get to dine on cheap pizzas and sodas from morning to evenings. combine weight is so heavy they have to rent the lower apartment.

 

[eatshitndie]

btw, corcoran has its own casino too as she borders a strip of land that belongs to native americans.

 

[Leongsam]

oh forgot again. remember the lioness' share on food and beverage? her kids get to dine on cheap pizzas and sodas from morning to evenings. combine weight is so heavy they have to rent the lower apartment.

Singaporeans.. the thousands who queue up to buy their iPads, iPhones and iPods are paying for a portion of her expenses.

Apple Inc pays taxes on its billions of profit and it is from the redistribution of these taxes that those lazy, fat lumps of stinking turd get their welfare cheques every week.

 

[eatshitndie]

.....

Apple Inc pays taxes on its billions of profit and it is from the redistribution of these taxes that those lazy, fat lumps of stinking turd get their welfare cheques every week.

i contributed about usd50 to the cause from an ipad2 purchase, and most likely usd25 of it are spent at the local casino, usd15 go to vegas, and the remaining 10 bucks go to useless, fat lumps of turd sitting behind counters at state welfare orifices, correction, offices.

usd50 was only the sales tax.

 

[Leongsam]

i contributed about usd50 to the cause from an ipad2 purchase, and most likely usd25 of it are spent at the local casino, usd15 go to vegas, and the remaining 10 bucks go to useless, fat lumps of turd sitting behind counters at state welfare orifices, correction, offices.

usd50 was only the sales tax.

Is your iPad2 not capable of formatting paragraphs?

 

[eatshitndie]

Is your iPad2 not capable of formatting paragraphs?

thanks for paragraphing! i'm such a lazy fat lump of turd that i find it troublesome to hit the "return" key after each paragraph. i blame it on wealthfare.

 

[brocoli]

Let us not drag socialism into this. You are muddying the water. Why do you think that unbridled greed without any form of control is good? Capitalism in itself is greed with no limit. A giraffe cannot grow it's neck too long otherwise it too will face extinction and capitalism is the neck of that giraffe.

you are the 1 muddying the water.....unbridled greed is good.... it mean endless innovation...

who say anything about lack of control...... fundamentally a market system is bout the protection of property right...... capitalism can only flourish when there is suufficiently complex and deveoped legal framwework to support it....

on the other hand socialism is theft.... it make every1 equally poor... which is a more evil system...?

How did a CCC Chairman get development rights in Sentosa without going thru the official tender process. When someone tells you he is clean, are you going to accept it?

Ho Bee's Chua Thian Poh, WKS's right-hand man.

When he makes $ contributions, it is always politically motivated. Never altruism.

Yes and anyone buying the property is eligible for PR. How lose money?

Wonder if Wing Tai's Cheung Wai Keung, also from WKS's GRC, enjoys any such benefits.

hey sccobal and fren... like I told nice goot... you can throw up 1000 historical fact which are very interesting but doesnt help help your arguement.... the bad thing is he try to bypass the official tender process......

there is nothing wrong with the official tender process... its the best system that allocate the contract... the problem is he cheat

the main enemy of capitalism are the incumbents, those who already have an established position in the marketplace and would prefer to see it remain exclusive.

 

[Fook Seng]

To those experts on capitalism and socialism, is the Government involvement in so many areas of investment, forget about the form it took (statutory board or private company), capitalism or socialism? For example like Mapletree, various companies in ST group etc.