Desiree says:
This comment appears in the article Singapore ‘average wealth per adult’ owned by less than 20%
| Rank | Country | Mean wealth per adult (in US$) |
Median wealth per adult (in US$) |
| 1 | Switzerland | 372,692 | 41,547 |
| 2 | Norway | 326,530 | 157,239 |
| 3 | Australia | 320,909 | 124,234 |
| 4 | Singapore | 255,488 | 30,092 |
| 5 | France | 255,156 | 66,521 |
| 6 | Sweden | 243,506 | 29,211 |
| 7 | United States | 236,213 | 47,771 |
| 8 | Luxembourg | 234,972 | 111,631 |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 229,940 | 78,765 |
| 10 | Italy | 226,423 | 115,182 |
Tax havens tend to have skewed average income figures. And I don’t understand why Luxembourg is even on that list. The population of Luxembourg is about 500,000, which is the same as Jurong, Clementi and Choa Chu Kang combined only. A commune of more than 1500 gets granted “city” status?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Luxembourg)
There are more people living in one HDB block than in their entire “city”. Furthermore, their high income is due to flexible border crossing and lax banking regulations.
“…the average income in Luxembourg is *not* $54,430 a year. Luxembourg is a small country of less than 500,000 people with very favorable banking laws. Each workday very large numbers of Belgians and Germans commute to Luxembourg to work in the financial industries located there for legal reasons. The labor these commuters perform adds to the size of Luxembourg’s economy, but these commuters do not add to the size of Luxembourg’s population. So when this tiny country’s economic output is divided by its population the figures come out far too high. ”
-http://www.success-and-culture.net/articles/percapitaincome.shtml
My point is that, most statistics are skewed if you do not possess more information on the nature of the state in question.
Switzerland has the same problem. In fact, it’s even more pronounced here (I’m living in Zurich at the moment).
To be honest, I’d rather own an apartment and not have much spare cash on hand than the other way around. At least if times get tough, I have a warm and safe place to live in.
Also, Singaporeans don’t understand how rich they truly are till they’ve seen the average lifestyle in other countries. People here go to the cinema once or twice a year. They cook at home almost all the time and eat out only on very special occasions. Roadside snacks are a luxury.
Of all the people I know, only about 5% have even travelled beyond Europe. Their holiday weekends are spent going for hikes and walks in nature. And it’s next to impossible to find anyone to go shopping here, because they have no shopping malls, and there is no shopping culture. You really need something, go get it, otherwise, don’t waste your money.
If Singaporeans would save all the money they spend on dining, entertainment and shopping, they would notice that they are indeed rich.
And just to point out, though Singapore is at the bottom of the list, virtually every country above it has a much higher living cost, especially when you compare city to city.
As you said, Singapore has no countryside, thus our average living costs may appear relatively high, though that is absolutely not the case. A simple cup of coffee costs CHF5= SGD6.60 approximately in Zurich. And there was a place that sells coffee at under CHF4 a cup (SGD5.30approx)… It made it on the news.
If you want to be happy in life, which is what I assume everyone wants to be, may I gently suggest trying not to sell yourself short. Get the full picture, realise and count your many blessings.
This is my advice as a Singaporean who left for what she mistakenly presumed to be greener pastures.
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Your article is very one sided.
Average Singaporeans work longer hours than Swiss (we work more than 45 works a week)
Average Singaporeans has no retirement benefits/pension compared to Swiss (CPF is not retirement benefit but used to pay for the HDB)
Average Singaporeans need duo income to sustain a family nucleus compared to Swiss
Average Singaporeans are not valued by their own country compared to Swiss (Think Indians and Chinese with the low wage demands)
Average Singaporeans do not have nice and free countryside to hide away compared to Swiss (You need to pay to get away)
This must be one of the strangest article I have read in a long while.
Here we have a single Singaporean lady, living alone in Zurich?, giving her anecdote of why life in Zurich, Switerland is not as rosy as the mean/medium GDP per capita figures show. She yearns for Singapore (and miss her cheap latte) and its affordable living there (shopping and cheap hawker fare). But, she is in Zurich, urging people not to go there or anywhere else for that matter (Luxermbourg?)as the pasture is not always greener on the other side.
It does not matter to her what the mean and average GDP figures really mean. Or that “average wealth per adult is owned by less than 20%” in Singapore.
What we know is that her education in Singapore has been sufficient to afford her to work in Zurich. But, not enough for her to comprehend the difference between mean and average. Just throw her some shopping vouchers, cheap hawker fare and lattes, she is more than willing to come back and earn the average or below average GDP salaries.
In the meantime, she would spout more anecdotes about how the 1999 Swiss standard of living once promised years ago is an illusion and that on “average” we are now better off than Switzerland today.
BABO
I was in Zurich a few months ago so I was really surprised to read this exceedingly negative post about life in Zurich. Here is why:
1. You rather own an apartment but not much spare cash? I rather have much spare cash and not an apartment. I rather have money to buy food and rent an apartment rather than go hungry and broke in a nice apartment.
2. You think the Swiss don’t go to cinemas or eat out because they cannot afford to do so? I don’t think so. I can understand why they don’t spend their two hours in a dark room and prefer to take the cruise on the scenic Lake Zurich or visit one of the many excellent museums or ski in the beautiful snowy mountains. And frankly speaking, most ‘angmohs’ that I know prefer to cook at home rather than eat out. Cooking is a life skill that is going extinct in Singapore. With the amount of fresh produce that are available easily in Switzerland (and also probably the time that they have as it seems they don’t work late much), I would even contemplate cooking for myself everyday.
3. You think they are poor because many of them don’t travel beyond Europe? Europe is so big (classified as a continent) it will take years to explore all the countries. Furthermore, not travelling out of the continent can mean they are perfectly happy and contented to be in Europe.
4. Funny, you complained about the price of a cup of coffee which is a little higher than in Singapore. You might want to compare other objects as well such as cars…. You can always make your own cup of coffee but you can’t build your own cars…
If you are really staying in Zurich right now, you gotta to be joking when you wrote this article! The point of this post of mine is not to encourage everyone to start applying to work in Switzerland now. Every country has its pros and cons. But the cons of staying in Switzerland are surely not what you have written. Some of the cons could be these:
1. Well-known to have extremely strict immigration laws. So it’s hard for you to be a resident there.
2. I don’t think you can get a live-in maid over there, so you got to do all housework yourself (not a con to me personally actually – I prefer not to have a stranger staying in my house)
3. English is not commonly spoken, you need German and/or French
4. Cold weather during winter
I would also offer a list of pros as well but this post is getting too long…
Shopping and eating out? Is that what life is to you? I think the author should go back to Singapore and enjoy the shallow consumerist lifestyle she wants. What an idiot.
Is the grass really greener on the other side?
If we don’t put the same effort there as we had here, that grass will wilt and die too.
The grass is only green if we are willing to put in the effort to tend to it.
[...] October 25, 2010 at 8:58 pm [...]
I sense much butthurt in comment section.