Sunday, December 25, 2011

Singapore sits moodily atop wealth pole...

LAST month, if Singapore had been a person, it would have stood above the unwashed tableau of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), watching from its penthouse and laughing into its cognac. But it has spent the year being a little down in the mouth, preoccupied with property prices, taxi fares and faulty trains.

This gloom is hard to explain in the grander scheme of things. When OWS's gross simplification of the one per cent trampling on the 99 per cent is contemplated, Singapore is practically part of the world's one per cent.

This is a country where, every single day, 25 people bought either a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW for the first 11 months of the year. In the same period, every four days, someone drove away from the Ferrari showroom with a big smile on his face. (One assumes that, each time, it's a different person.)

 When it comes down to it, Singapore can be almost as Wall Street as Wall Street. Last year, 8.5 per cent of New York City's workforce was on the payroll of the finance and insurance industries. Singapore had about 6.4 per cent of its resident population on it, while Hong Kong had 6 per cent. Full story...

Don't miss:
  1. Singapore: playground of the super-rich...
  2. Singapore is not so clean, Mr Murdoch!
  3. The rich in Singapore get 6-star nirvana treatment for their departed...
  4. The super rich are doing very well, thank you...
  5. The 10 most expensive places in the world to live...
  6. Rico, a man living on the streets...

No comments:

Post a Comment