TR EMERITUS

The Economist is running this week with ‘Six big economic ideas: a collection of briefs on the discipline’s (economics) seminal papers’. I will use some of these ideas to offer a different way to look at our current conundrums. George Akerlof, “The Market for Lemons”: Akerlof used the 2nd hand car market to illustrate... 

The back tax bill is €13bn (or SGD$ 19.75bn) according to Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition. What does SGD$ 19.75bn means? For a proper perspective: 1. The total corporate tax in Singapore for FY 15/16 is SGD$ 13.8 bn, 2. Our total tax collection for the same period is SGD$ 44.8 bn, 3. Our defense... 

It did not escape my cynicism that when the Constitutional Commission on Elected President submitted their report to PM Lee on 17th August, the very next day on the 18th August a CNA-IPS report had this headline: Most Singaporeans prefer someone of the same race as the nation’s Prime Minister or President. [CNA 18 Aug]. And...