Balding's World, 11 Jun 2012According to the World Development Indicators from the World Bank, when we compare Singapore to other major SWF countries with more than a few years in existence, the differences are stark. Singapore ranks last in education spending and last in public health expenditure. The government of Singapore is capturing the financial benefits of its citizens productivity and not providing the public goods and services its people have every right to expect.
Whereas oil rich states have enormous sovereign wealth funds because they won the geographic lottery, Singapore created enormous sovereign wealth funds by capturing the economic productivity of its people.
The government of Singapore has built sovereign wealth funds not through natural resource wealth or shrewd investments, but capturing the financial wealth of the people of Singapore. The people of Singapore work for the government. Full story
