Am I stupid?

And so casinos it is then...

To be honest, I don't exactly have strong views on this subject. I am neither deeply religious, nor too rich and flamboyant to imagine being able to visit those integrated resorts and have fun. But it does feel mildly exciting to have a "mini Las Vegas" in Singapore don't you all think so? Think theme parks and wild rides...hmmm....

But yet I also understand the fears about broken families, criminal syndicates blah blah. But perhaps I have been revising too much for my own good, I do feel that Singapore is in dire need of reinventing itself. In my Economics of Growth course, some articles had estimated that almost the entire growth of Singapore in the past few decades had come via factor accumulation (i.e increase in capital and education and skills of labour) and very little had come from technological growth, as compared to say Hong Kong which had grown more from TFP. I guess it might have been exaggerated but the main message remains stark: that the growth strategies pursued thus far is unlikely to bring us any further.

In other words, we need to pursue new areas. In fact, any area is worth looking at. Competition is THAT tough. Even Creative, that shining beacon of Singapore entrepreneurship, is finding competition with Apple tough. Even though sales of mp3 players had gone up, profits had dropped by a huge percentage (can't remember the exact figures, it was in the news a few days ago). We can't afford to let Singapore fall behind...

And one of the most ridiculous arguments that I had read sometimes was that 'you can't put a value on broken families" blah blah. To be honest, that is just total rubbish. If that is the correct attitude to take, then we should just shut down all the Economics departments in the world. You HAVE TO put a value on such things so as to properly evaluate costs and benefits. If you do not attempt to quantify such things and hide behind the excuse of losses being unquantifiable, then you will never get anything done. Road accidents happen everyday, so do we ban motor vehicles? No! Like it or not, we have to attempt to put values on such things. That's how society deals with unlimited wants and limited resources.

Nagging doubt in my mind:

Sometimes I really wonder whether Government polices are really so good that I support them, or I have been totally brain washed into believing so, or I am totally ignorant and stupid. :S :S :S