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From: lkk@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Point of Information: Economy of Singapore
Message-ID: <1475@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Oct-85 16:15:55 EDT
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Posted: Mon Oct 21 16:15:55 1985
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Singapore is one of a handful of southeast Asian countries which are often
pointed to as "model" free-market economies.

President Reagan recently praised the Premier of Singapore for the 
free market and low tax rate theory.

A column in today's Wall Street Journal op-ed page tells another story.

Every employee in Singapore is required to contribute 25% of his salary to
something called (I think) the General Provident Fund.  Every employer is
required to match this amount.  Thus, this tax accounts for 40% of labor costs
in Singapore.

The General Provident Fund is a universal pension fund for Singapore.  But it
is also used as a source of descrecionary funds for "improving society."  This
includes building a new airport and providing various other types of
infrastructure which has helped account for Singapore's 8% growth rate in
recent years.


BTW, the author of the column Maxine Kirkpatrick, was an economic conservative
as far as I could tell.

-- 

Sport Death,
Larry Kolodney
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