Citizen behavior and consumer behavior

I’m actually very impressed with the government in Singapore because they understand consumer behavior. In addition to implementing strict laws, they also impact behavior in less obvious ways. For example, they don’t make a huge announcement that they are going to implement a campaign to make people lose weight. Instead they create an infrastructure in the city to make it easy for people to run and exercise. They also incentivize companies to create sporting events for employees. As a result people are inclined to make healthier choices. Very clever! I mentioned a casino in my last post. It’s free for foreigners to enter the casinos because the government wants us to spend our money. However, locals have to pay just to enter the casino. They don’t want the locals to get hooked on gambling, and this is how they impact behavior.

How does an island in the middle of SE Asia become a developed country? Based on my observations, it seems that government plays a huge role in the growth of a country. I saw in Nepal that the government holds it back. The government in China was able to help its country develop when it opened the borders. You need to have a government that is looking at the long-term picture instead of short-term personal gain. For example, Singapore is currently dependent on water from Malaysia, but the government is in the process of implementing plans to become self-sufficient in the future. They were buying sand from Indonesia to extend its border, but then Indonesia realized that they were becoming a smaller country as a result of that exchange.

Singapore is basically a big rock where nothing can grow. The government could have focused on tourism, but they knew they couldn’t compete with great beach vacation spots in SE Asia, so they chose to take a different route and focused on financial business and other services.

No government is perfect though. From what I understand, there is basically one party in Singapore, though technically it is a democracy. There is one other party that is called “the opposition.” Areas of the country that are strong with the opposition have a harder time getting the truck to pick up trash, and they may have less schools built in their community.