Will Singapore face the same outcome as Ireland?

Should we be worried about Singapore? Prevention is better than cure.

DareToAct

Excerpt:
Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe when it joined the EU in 1973 along with Britain. Even with European subsidies, unemployment in the mid-1980s averaged 16 percent.


In the 1990s, lured by a 12.5 percent corporate tax, companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. helped Ireland export its way into becoming the “Celtic Tiger.” The jobless rate sank to 3.9 percent by 2001. In the decade through 2006, Ireland grew at an average annual rate of about 7 percent, the fastest among euro-area countries.


That expansion, together with easy credit, fanned a real- estate bubble. Home prices almost quadrupled in the decade through 2007. It went disastrously wrong for Ireland following the 2008 demise of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc ., which turned the slowdown in the property market into an implosion that engulfed the economy. The ISEQ stock index has plunged 70 percent from its record in 2007.
 
My view
Singapore is following the same path and is likely to face the same outcome.