< The government is trying desperately to boost the birth rate with generous benefits, dating services and louche advertisements. And still the birth rate falls. >

Oh for goodness sake! Don’t they know when they are on a good thing?

Singapore is VERY crowded. The people have chosen to have fewer kids, because they have other excellent life choices. Life is good there. Malcolm Cook and the silly government should be celebrating that!

It would be even better going into the future if the daft government didn’t import people or try to boost the birthrate, and actually just let the population decline for a decade or so. Then perhaps some very simple adjustment by way of immigration might be in order.

Pericles I love you - it is, as you say, 'become extinct'. Anyway, Singapore and Singaporeans are a very recent construct, there have always been many foreigners eager to work there, so there is really no population problem at all unless you are a racist. Leave them alone to breed or not, as they choose.

Who are these "originals" Lee is talking about? Chinese? I seriously doubt that the Malayan birth rate is in decline, their birthrate in Malaysia is about 21, the birthrate in China is about 12 and Singapore it's around 8.
There's a problem with the birthrate among North Asians:
http://quicktake.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/crisis-in-shanghai-with-birth-rate-lower-than-japan-is-china-lost/
If you want analysis of the gross side effects of globalisation and U.N policy refer to Third World commentators, silly White people have no right to even discuss the issue.
http://quicktake.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/why-does-south-have-so-many-divorcees/
http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/

Oh dear, Ludwig. Do I detect some double standards operating here?

>>The people have chosen to have fewer kids, because they have other excellent life choices. Life is good there.<<

In your view, exercising choice means only doing things that Ludwig approves of. What about people exercising their choice, to have lots of kids? Maybe just because they like 'em. Or because "life is good here"?

You also once again miss the snag inherent in your scenario where the population declines "for a decade or so". The economy will stagnate, the young folk will find the taxation burden intolerable and move elsewhere, and Mr Lee's concept of Singaporean society will implode.

Which is precisely what he is worried about.

I suspect that Singapore will eventually become a case-study for what happens to a closed society under a "benign dictatorship". As with any authoritarian regime, imbalances are created that can only be resolved with a generation or two of backlash against whatever it was that the regime stood for.

My abiding memory of the place was the daily government homily, poorly disguised as a full page-five op-ed in the Straits Times. Complete with vox pop "interviews". On subjects ranging from peeing in the lifts (bad) to queuing nicely on the brand new MRT stations (good). It would have been sad if it wasn't so consistently hilarious.

Singapore is a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable city, even now that Chinatown has gone, Raffles has been emasculated and the original Bugis Street is no more. Yes, it is crowded. But that's 90% of the fun.

*Yes, it is crowded. But that's 90% of the fun.*

Fun for you rich ones perhaps, Pericles. Perhaps less fun for those
living in those little rat cages, row after row, peering out, just like Desmond Morris so aptly described it, a human zoo.

You could always try Dhaka or Bombay, if you like crowding.Not the
rich parts though....

Ahh, Pericles, you are waaay off track, as usual.

<< What about people exercising their choice, to have lots of kids? >>

Um, no problem, if only a small portion of the population is doing it, and the birthrate is not too high as to lead to crippling population growth problems.

So in Singapore; no problem at all. And no doubt some people do choose to have lots of kids.

That’s one real advantage of the good life; people having the choice to have none, one, two or perhaps twenty five kids!

<< You also once again miss the snag inherent in your scenario where the population declines "for a decade or so” >>
No dear Pericles, it is you who is looking straight past the bleeding obvious – the place is overcrowded now, so how can it be expected to maintain its great standard of living, and keep the gap between the rich and poor reasonably small if it is to continue packing em in, with no end in sight?

<< I suspect that Singapore will eventually become a case-study for what happens to a closed society under a "benign dictatorship". >>

I suspect that with its addiction to rapid population growth, Singapore will become a case study on what happens when a country or city doesn’t stabilise its population when it should do and just continues to grow itself into interminable decline.

Surely Lee Kuan Yew, being the brilliant person he is, can see this.