There was a lot of scepticism about the quality of the Chinese COVID hospital built from scratch in ridiculously short time, but if you want to see a country doing something similar with a high quality outcome, watch this video about Singapore building a COVID ward in a hospital car park:
Once again, I will swoon over the technocratic success story of Singapore, and Homer will complain I am supporting a disgusting authoritarian regime.
despotic regime,
ReplyDeleteGet it right
The city-state was always the best political form. Except for the fact that it could not always protect itself. The city state is needed more than ever. Internationalism could not be more delusional because it locks normal dysfunction into the ground and pours cement over it. Even the authoritarian nature of a city-state ought not be offensive if this were the norm and not the exception. Because should we not be able to make peace with Lee we could try our luck with Pericles. If we cannot have the city-state ... meaning that if the city-state cannot protect itself, then we ought to be aiming at radical cantonisation. Radical federalism.
ReplyDeleteBy the way I see Lee as equally as great a character as Pericles. Pericles made the mistake of not attacking and damaging the Spartans on their own turf before suing for peace. He was expecting a different type of rationality from the Spartans. But we have to go easy on him because he didn't have his own example to learn from. Failing to go on the offensive lead to his death through plague as he rationally holed up in his own city under his rationale policy of using his walls and his navy to get grain from as far away as the Ukraine. That sort of rationality not tempered by experience can be suicidal.
ReplyDeleteAnd thats the sort of suicidal nonsense that Homer is expecting of Lee and his successors. Communists to the left of him and jokers to the right. There is no way a father of a city-state can be too patient with a lot of subversives that he's stuck in the middle with. He has to think about the health and well-being of the vast majority of his subjects. And Lee served his people as well as any leader in all of history.
I agree Graeme.
ReplyDeleteRegardless if an election were held in 'perfectly' fair conditions, the PAP would win every single time so far, no doubt about it.
Also, if you actually have a genuine policy grievance that actually matters to people (e.g. a hospital should be built in ward X, there should be x changes to the superannuation system). you are perfectly allowed to voice them without any fear or reprisal. The PAP has in the past recruited genuine policy critics into its party. It's not as if you're not allowed to disagree on policy. It has taken critics' views into consideration, otherwise it wouldn't be winning both politically and governance wise the way it has. It's only if you want to engage in needless histrionics and political performance art that you get targeted.
A fair election in Singapore?
ReplyDeleteThe thing is if you are running things, whether you are a little bit overpaid or you are fairly paid .... so long as you really want local sovereignty, good health, great living conditions, and plenty of jobs for your people .... And everything you've done has been for these goals, then you are going to be very tolerant of a lot of suggestions and criticisms. But if you want millions of dollars in your Swiss bank accounts, you are loyal to foreign powers, foreign countries and foreign lenders, or if you've got these weird abstract goals like making the methane move backwards up a cows asshole then thats going to make you sensitive to suggestions, let alone criticisms.
ReplyDeleteSegway: We have a big problem in economics with the way the study is defined. Supposing its defined as "The creation of wealth in the context of the division of labour" and that the last 8 words are just to separate economics from lets say engineering ..... So then we have got economics as the study of wealth creation. Then I can hold economists at eg. Catallaxy to account for their foolishness, lack of patriotism, idiotic superstitious take on things and so forth.
But since they define economics as the study of the allocation of scarce resources, then the economists will go on proposing various scams for allocating our scarce resources and there is no way I can point out that they are remiss in their duties.
Well Singapore public servants bank their superb salaries, but they don't steal, they don't cheat, they don't sell out to the Chinese, the Japanese the Americans or the international bankers. And they try and get great jobs, places to live and business opportunities to their people and few countries have more scarce resources than they do. So they don't care about suggestions and criticisms for the most part.
But if some lunatic Keynesian wants to advocate red ink everywhere to put the place in debt peonage, like our economists do .... well maybe you would want to look at shutting an idiot like that down. Because he would threaten everything they have.
Certainly if I was running things you could not have a job in the public service and still be bullshitting people about CO2 or that its a great idea to be bleeding red ink everywhere. Because no economists have ever came good on this suicidal bullshit and they never will.