"What do you call a country that takes 35% of salaries to finance a state investment fund run by the prime minister's wife? Where the government controls companies responsible for 60% of gross domestic product and 85% of its citizens live in public housing? And a country with stringent restrictions on the media and public information, limits on freedom of expression and assembly, and courts that help perpetuate the domination of the only ruling party the country has ever known?
"The country described above is Singapore"
What do you call a country that takes 35% of salaries to finance a state investment fund run by the prime minister's wife?
Unlike in America, where Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, in Singapore retirement funds deducted from paychecks are invested in a state-administered fund called Temasek Holdings, whose financial records are publicly available.
The CEO of Temasek is Ho Ching.
Ho Ching became CEO of Temasek in 2002, two years before her husband was elected Prime Minister of Singapore.
She has a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, was a defense engineer for more than a decade, then went to the private sector and worked her way up to CEO of a technology company.
She is a self-made woman who was not appointed to her job by her husband.
Where the government controls companies responsible for 60% of gross domestic product
The Singaporean government, instead of giving welfare handouts like a Third World country would do, uses tax money to seed investments in companies that gainfully employ Singaporeans and which plow their profits back into the local economy.
and 85% of its citizens live in public housing?
This is simply false. While the real estate companies that finance Singaporean housing have the Singaporean government among their investors, this is not subsidized housing provided by the government. It is housing paid for by its residents.
And a country with stringent restrictions on the media and public information
Its restrictions are common to other British Commonwealth countries, like - famously - Canada and the UK with their "superinjunctions" on "sensitive information."
limits on freedom of expression and assembly
Singapore censors pornography (like America in the 1950s) and it also requires police permits for public demonstrations (like pretty much every city in America). It also enforces criminal libel more strictly than we do in America.
and courts that help perpetuate the domination of the only ruling party the country has ever known?
The PAP has held a majority in the Singapore Parliament for 53 years. The Democrats held a majority of the US Congress for 40 years. The PAP lost 6% of its vote in the past election and Singapore's left-wing minority now holds a 40% position in the Parliament.
Muhammad Cohen (formerly Eliot Cohen) is a long time critic of Singapore, which he sees as anti-Muslim and anti-Indonesian.
He's not a reliable source of unbiased information.