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Singapore sounds like a seriously two-tiered society of aristocrats and serfs: > "Lacking in natural resources, Singapore’s government has long stressed that i
by photochemsyn 5y ago
Singapore sounds like a seriously two-tiered society of aristocrats and serfs:
> "Lacking in natural resources, Singapore’s government has long stressed that its most important resource is its people. However, with declining birth rates and low population growth, the country increasingly relies on immigrants to help shoulder the economic burden. In 2020, Singapore’s foreign workforce stood at just under 1.23 million, out of which about 351 thousand were classified as skilled labor. Most of the foreign workforce were employed in sectors that were deemed unappealing to Singaporeans, such as in construction and the service industry, or as domestic help." [1]
https://www.statista.com/statistics/698035/singapore-number-of-immigrants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/698035/singapore-number-...
The power structure looks like a kind of 'walled city'. The position of Singapore at the east end of the Straits of Malacca, a key transit route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean, made it a trading hub and Singapore's wealth is due to extraction of a percentage of the wealth flowing through it.
- toyg 5y agoThey also refine a bunch of the Indonesian oil, which I always found funny (refining is where the real money is, so why don't Indonesians do it themselves...?)
- sct202 5y agoIndonesia nationalized all the assets of Royal Dutch Shell after independence, so there was probably some hesitation from companies to build refineries there versus Singapore.
- dragonwriter 5y agoFinished goods are where all the money is in capitalism, so why do any of the poor countries that export raw materials not just stop doing that and make finished goods?
- coldtea 5y agoBecause post-colonial powers ensure that friendly (to them) people are in power that doesn't even dream of attempting it. And if that fails, they can also bomb or bring in a dictatorship.
- smnrchrds 5y ago> refining is where the real money is, so why don't Indonesians do it themselves...? The economics of oil industry is more complicated than that. Canada does not refine most of its oil either. It's not because we don't have the technology or the money to build more refineries. It's because refining any more than the current amount does not make economic sense.
- missedthecue 5y agoRefining is a tough very capital intensive business with very slim margins (known as the crack spread). I wouldn't say it's where all the money is at all.