From Third World To First / Real Estate

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography, which has developed Singapore into Asia's best country while serving as Singapore's prime minister for a long time, is titled [From Third World To First]. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had politics independent of ideology. He also advised Vietnam's Secretary-General Do Muoy on how to convert a socialist country such as Vietnam into a capitalist state. And he made Singapore's economy healthy by implementing a non-capitalist real estate policy with the principle of one household and one house.

 

I found something surprising while driving a neighborhood bus in the Seoul metropolitan area of Korea. Residents' pride in the number of apartments they live in was great, and many people worked desperately in shabby clothes to pay off their apartment loans. Three years ago, I joked and advised passengers who were close to me to move to a neat local city where I am located and live leisurely with the remaining real estate prices because the real estate bubble is about to collapse like Japan. Then the answer came back that they could not live in a place without jobs.

 

 

Korea's real estate problem (Japan and China also have serious real estate problems, and the U.S. also suffered a great shock from the Lehman Brothers incident around 2008) is the number one factor in moving from a first-class country to a third-class country. All industrial demand was concentrated on real estate, and the development of other fields was stagnant, and the balanced development of the metropolitan area and the local area was not achieved, intensifying the concentration of the population in the metropolitan area.

 

Perhaps the biggest reason why Korea has become a low birth rate country is real estate prices. Individuals cannot afford to raise their children because they have poured all their economic resources into real estate. Also, the state and society have poured all their economic resources into real estate, so the state and society cannot afford to support citizens. The reason why Singapore and Germany's economies are solid is that the government has prevented the country's human and economic resources from being concentrated on real estate. In Germany, real estate is also treated as a "public asset" to the extent that the majority of residents live in rental apartments. It will not be easy in Korea because of ideological logic.

 

 

Leaders should not be swayed by ideological support from the people, and should pursue pragmatic policies with clear goals for national development. In this respect, it can be said that Singapore's politics is worth referencing to South Korea and North Korea. South Korea will have to find a way to convert to a more public form in Singapore, and North Korea will have to find a way to convert to a much more private form in Singapore.