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The Tale of 2 Countries Kenya & Singapore
Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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Interesting observations. Lee Kuan Yew— the first Prime Minister of Singapore Mzee Jomo Kenyatta - the first President of the Republic of Kenya Lee Hsien Loong is the son of the first Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister of Singapore and has been in office since 2004. Prior to being PM, he served, among other positions, as Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister. Uhuru Kenyatta the current President of Kenya prior to being President he was among other positions a MP, Min of finance and Deputy Prime minister. In 1963, when Kenya got independence, and Singapore merged with Malaysia, Kenya’s GDP was $926.6 million while Singapore’s was $917.2 million. In 1978, when the founding president of Kenya died, Kenya’s GDP had grown to $5.3 billion, but had been surpassed by Singapore whose GDP then had grown to $8.06 billionBy 1990, when Kuan Yew stepped down from PM’s office (and Kenya on the verge of multiparty democracy), Singapore’s GDP was $38.9 billion compared to Kenya’s $8.57 billion. By 2013, as Mr Kenyatta was taking over the reins of Kenya’s leadership, he was managing an economy of only $55.24 billion while his counterpart Mr Hsien was managing a whopping $297.9 billion economy.
Source"There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: User Joined: 8/15/2013 Posts: 13,237 Location: Vacuum
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Very sad If Obiero did it, Who Am I?
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Rank: User Joined: 8/15/2013 Posts: 13,237 Location: Vacuum
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Very sad If Obiero did it, Who Am I?
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/20/2007 Posts: 4,432
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SMH Jose: If I make it through this thug life, I'll see you one day. The Lord is the only way to stop the hurt.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 12/17/2009 Posts: 3,583 Location: Kenya
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For a country to develop you have to put aside human rights, and contend with some form of dictatorship and or socialist tendencies, otherwise its like trying to chase the wind.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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lack of vision esp during the Moi error is a major cause of our problems. "There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: New-farer Joined: 1/28/2015 Posts: 10
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murchr wrote:Interesting observations. Lee Kuan Yew— the first Prime Minister of Singapore Mzee Jomo Kenyatta - the first President of the Republic of Kenya Lee Hsien Loong is the son of the first Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister of Singapore and has been in office since 2004. Prior to being PM, he served, among other positions, as Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister. Uhuru Kenyatta the current President of Kenya prior to being President he was among other positions a MP, Min of finance and Deputy Prime minister. In 1963, when Kenya got independence, and Singapore merged with Malaysia, Kenya’s GDP was $926.6 million while Singapore’s was $917.2 million. In 1978, when the founding president of Kenya died, Kenya’s GDP had grown to $5.3 billion, but had been surpassed by Singapore whose GDP then had grown to $8.06 billionBy 1990, when Kuan Yew stepped down from PM’s office (and Kenya on the verge of multiparty democracy), Singapore’s GDP was $38.9 billion compared to Kenya’s $8.57 billion. By 2013, as Mr Kenyatta was taking over the reins of Kenya’s leadership, he was managing an economy of only $55.24 billion while his counterpart Mr Hsien was managing a whopping $297.9 billion economy.
Source One sees this misconception all the time. Even with Obama. Yes, if you look at the figures, Kenya was an equal to Singapore, S. Korea etc. But what is never mentioned is that the basis of this was almost wholly attributable to the settler economy. Once the settler left for S. Africa, Rhodesia, NZ etc. the know-how and the money left too. It is called human capital and we did not have it. Of course we would be further along without the theft. But we like to kid ourselves that we were making the money when we weren't. Singapore had been a port since the 13th century. Of course it was poor, but the Chinese ran the place. And they had the capitalist culture which we only recently developed. In any case, life for indigenous Kenyans in the 60s was not that far removed from the technical backwardness of pre-colonial times. We tend to forget that we did not even have a wheel when the mzungu came. Or a script, or capable weaponry. Contrast that with the Korean or Chinese civilizations. Bottom-line, we need to grow some sense of perspective.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/28/2008 Posts: 2,276 Location: Kibish
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Are they both lefties? Nadondosha meli kubwa seuze ngalawa!
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Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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Torio wrote:murchr wrote:Interesting observations. Lee Kuan Yew— the first Prime Minister of Singapore Mzee Jomo Kenyatta - the first President of the Republic of Kenya Lee Hsien Loong is the son of the first Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister of Singapore and has been in office since 2004. Prior to being PM, he served, among other positions, as Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister. Uhuru Kenyatta the current President of Kenya prior to being President he was among other positions a MP, Min of finance and Deputy Prime minister. In 1963, when Kenya got independence, and Singapore merged with Malaysia, Kenya’s GDP was $926.6 million while Singapore’s was $917.2 million. In 1978, when the founding president of Kenya died, Kenya’s GDP had grown to $5.3 billion, but had been surpassed by Singapore whose GDP then had grown to $8.06 billionBy 1990, when Kuan Yew stepped down from PM’s office (and Kenya on the verge of multiparty democracy), Singapore’s GDP was $38.9 billion compared to Kenya’s $8.57 billion. By 2013, as Mr Kenyatta was taking over the reins of Kenya’s leadership, he was managing an economy of only $55.24 billion while his counterpart Mr Hsien was managing a whopping $297.9 billion economy.
Source One sees this misconception all the time. Even with Obama. Yes, if you look at the figures, Kenya was an equal to Singapore, S. Korea etc. But what is never mentioned is that the basis of this was almost wholly attributable to the settler economy. Once the settler left for S. Africa, Rhodesia, NZ etc. the know-how and the money left too. It is called human capital and we did not have it. Of course we would be further along without the theft. But we like to kid ourselves that we were making the money when we weren't. Singapore had been a port since the 13th century. Of course it was poor, but the Chinese ran the place. And they had the capitalist culture which we only recently developed. In any case, life for indigenous Kenyans in the 60s was not that far removed from the technical backwardness of pre-colonial times. We tend to forget that we did not even have a wheel when the mzungu came. Or a script, or capable weaponry. Contrast that with the Korean or Chinese civilizations. Bottom-line, we need to grow some sense of perspective. The excuses we give for being mediocre. Yes settlers left in the 60s but when they left, Africans took over those clerical jobs and worked them pretty well. By this time, Kenyans had some form of education that was "good enough" to run the economy. The mzungu industry that existed in this part of Subsahara Africa was run by the mzungu himself, infact not very much has changed since then. About civilizations, the same way the Chinese civilization existed in Singapore that same civilization did exist in our Kenyan coast, that and more, the Arabs were trading bigtime there with the Kambas (ever wondered why there are so many Kaos at the coast) and Indians..., if anything, the size of the economy of Mombasa should be close to that of Singapore The resource advantages that exist for Kenya vis-a-vis Singapore are immense. Singapore's economy was once reliant of fishing and the port, how much do we make from the variety of fish we harvest in this country?? "There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: New-farer Joined: 1/28/2015 Posts: 10
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You might call them excuses, but the backwardness of Kenya and quite a chunk of sub-Saharan Africa is not wholly attributable to corruption. I don't mean to say that corruption and a disdain for planning has not hard a major impact. But we need to stop equating Kenya of the 60s with the Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan of that time because it is silly.
Trading small bits ivory, salt and cowrie shells collected somewhere is barely comparable to silk, cotton and porcelain manufacture and trade. The fact is, the Chinese - who are the economic drivers of East Asian Tigers - have had a capitalist culture of manufacture and trade for centuries. No society is going to simply leap frog a period of nurture. This would explain why Botswana is still undeveloped despite having a decent government for 50yrs. Certain tribal groupings like the Kikuyu had a nascent capitalist culture at the onset of colonialism which might explain their obvious role in the Kenyan economy.
Another factor that is often disregarded is pragmatism. Kenyans and their leaders are not realistic about obvious impediments such as uncontrolled population growth. Even today, no politician or church leader is going to put his/her neck out on this. It is as though our idol is Bangladesh. Yet we can see the devastating effect it has had on our environment, economy and general human condition. All those East Asian countries instituted birth control policies right from the 60s. We may ignore it, but the rabid competition for resources in our country is actually one of the drivers of corruption.
To sum, our backwardness is due to low value human capital, rapid population growth, corruption (incl. lack of economic planning) in that order.
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The Tale of 2 Countries Kenya & Singapore
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