Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

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You make my point nicely.

You are correct that I don't know anything about Singapore other than what I read in the press like the Economist and the CIA Factbook.

However I do know quite a bit about analyzing high tech enterprises, and the creation of said enterprises. And that analysis is a bit more nuanced than 'health care is more expensive.'

The Singapore Statistics Office disagrees with some of your numbers [1] they claim 4% unemployment. But it doesn't say what they spend on health care.

But lets say your ideal employee in Singapore cost your $70,000 USD / year. In California you can get health care on an individual basis for $500/month for most people, $1000 a month for older people (60+), and a lot less for young healthy people. But lets say you spend $1000 a month. So that means a $12,000 per employee per year health cost penalty. Now 25 employees at 70K each is a salary pool of $1,750,000. If you hire Californians at $70,000 and give them each $12,000 for health care ($82,000 effective salary) then you can only hire $1,750,000/$82,000 or 21 of them (and $28,000 left over in your pool)

So here is a different, but an important question. Can you achieve with 21 engineers in California what you can achieve with 25 engineers in Singapore? (this happens to be an interesting number because for those of us who have lived in the Bay Area for a few decades there is a saying that goes "With 20 people and a good idea I can change the world!")

I'm not trying to take anything away from Singapore, I'm sure its a great place and everything I read says it has great infrastructure and a very business friendly climate. What I'm saying is that using health care costs in this way is not an effective reasoning tool with regards to a high tech endeavor. Twenty technical employees who have already done a start-up or two each are going to be hugely more productive getting a new endeavor off the ground.

[1] http://www.mom.gov.sg/statistics-publications/national-labou...

Okay, first, a minor point: Unemployment has continued to fall in Singapore; your link is for 2010, but it's lower now[1].

Next, let's assume you're correct about health care costs. There are still two logical errors in your argument:

1) There are a lot of differences between the US and Singapore. Health care is only one of them; the original article listed several more. Even if you're right that health care costs alone only lead to a 16% advantage (which is probably off by a factor of 3-4, given overall health care spending in each country), don't forget all the other areas.

2) Not everywhere is the Bay Area. Perhaps the Bay Area can compete with Singapore, but the Bay Area has a lot of unique advantages. Are we writing off everyone not in the Bay Area? And don't say "oh, they can just move here"; the infrastructure won't support it.

The original author wants to talk about Singapore and high tech jobs; you picked only one of several differences which made Singapore attractive, and then compared it to the most attractive region in the US. And even on that basis, it looks a bit like a toss up.

Let's close by turning back to Singapore. As you admit, Singapore is much more business friendly. And it has very enviable economic statistics. I already mentioned the 2% unemployment, so let's look at GDP per capita. Using PPP, Singapore comes in 3rd worldwide in 2011 according to the IMF[2], with a per capita GDP of $60k - 24% higher than the US.

Remember that per capita GDP is a measure of the value added in an economy. In concrete terms, those numbers mean that the average person in Singapore is so productive that they can afford a lifestyle 24% nicer than the average person in America. Your example tried to argue that Americans are so much more productive than Singaporeans that you can cover the health care costs and still come out ahead. The statistics say that on average, it actually the Singaporeans who are more productive.

(Mind you: Singapore is small, and in many ways unique. I'm not suggesting that it's possible or desirable to copy their model on the scale of the US. Also, they have high inequality, and poor protection of civil liberties. I suspect many Americans value their relatively low inequality and strong civil liberties. And yet...repealing Obamacare and properly reforming American health care to be along more Singaporean lines would not obviously lead to higher inequality or weaker civil liberties, and it is clear that it could lead to a wealthier society and higher job growth. Something to keep in mind...)

[1]: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STI... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

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