September 1st, 2008, 1:12 pm
Where do you get this idea about Singapore?Singaporeans.I also did a stint as part of the Phillip group.You mention "buying out your contract", which is exactly the issue that makes me pessimistic about Sg's hopes of being the 3rd centre.Not saying Sg will fall over and die, perhaps it could have the same relationship to HK (or whichever city wins) that Paris or Dublin has to London.If you're going to make your living out of high brainpower based industries then you need the most liquid labour market you can get.The PRC will find it easier to get a liquid labour market for high skilled labour since unlike Sg, it won't have to listen to vested interests who want to hoard labour in a Soviet fashion. Yes, I see the irony in all that.Sg has a legal system, whereas the PRC does not, which is a huge asset. LKY left Britain too soon...Although London may now be the largest financial centre, from the perspective of that many years ago it was a very unlikely event.Britain had a lower GDP per head than Italy, and it's economy was far behind what we then called West Germany, a smaller entity than what we call Germany now.France was ahead on pretty much every measure and the running was between Frankfurt and Paris to be Europe's finance centre.The British changed huge piles of law whole occupations were abolished, as were privileges to types of lawyer, banker, and coal miner.Britain now has the least fucked up labour market in Europe, which is not quite the same as non-fucked up, but less is currently enough.That means sucking in foreigners against local protests, (London was a major city in the French Presidential elections), and taking out vested interests.If like Sg your government cannot tell the difference between commerce and administration it's much tougher to do this.