Time-Out with Jude-Bela

This is a sovereign island city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. An island nation with little to no natural resources of any consequence. It is considered one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, heavily dependent on rainfall due to the lack of natural water resources, and limited land is available for water storage facilities. This is Singapore, an island nation with a highly developed free-market economy. Singapore's economy has been ranked as the most open globally, 3rd least corrupt, most pro-business, with low tax rates, and has the third-highest per-capita GDP in the world in terms of purchasing power parity. Singapore is building the world’s finest economy from nothing. But it wasn’t always a paradise. So what led to this great transformation? It can be argued that no country leaped from Third World poverty to developed world affluence as quickly and completely as Singapore did. In the 1960s, Singapore was known for its opium dens, gang-ridden streets, smelling slums, and racial tensions. Now it is known for its high-tech industries, comfortable lifestyle, and high-speed Internet penetration. Singapore became independent as the Republic of Singapore on 9th August 1965, with Lee Kuan Yew and Yusof bin Ishak as the first prime minister and president. Lee Kuan Yew's emphasis on rapid economic growth, support for business entrepreneurship, and limitations on internal democracy shaped Singapore's policies for the next half-century. Economic growth continued throughout the 1980s, with the unemployment rate falling to 3% and real GDP growth averaging at about 8% up until 1999. During the 1980s, Singapore began to shift towards high-tech industries, such as the wafer fabrication sector, to remain competitive as neighboring countries began manufacturing cheaper labor. It is interesting to note that Singapore thrives on international trade, as it had since its founding in 1819, and operates as a free port with free markets.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Jude_bela)

About 45 years ago, China was barely a 3rd world country. They maintained policies that kept the economy very poor and stagnant. It was also centrally controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. But fast forward to this day, and the Asian giants are up there as one of the global economy's dominant forces. China has been among the world’s fastest-growing economies since opening up its economy to foreign trade and investment in 1979, with real annual growth in GDP averaging 9.5% through 2018, a pace described by the World Bank as “the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history.” This change in fortune has enabled China, on average, to double its GDP every eight years literally and helped raise an estimated 800 million people out of poverty. This is almost twice the population of the United States.But wait, they didn’t stop there; Recent data has shown China to be the world’s largest economy based on a purchasing power parity. This, of course, has turned China into a major commercial partner of the United States. But how was this possible? It's not a matter of luck, and the Chinese government is not a transparent nor honest one either. So how were they able to achieve this feat amidst all the corrupt practices of the communist party?People believe there is something shady with China’s rise to World Dominance but is there?In the period before 1979, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, China maintained a centrally planned or command economy. A large share of the country's economic output was directed and controlled by the state, setting production goals, controlled prices, and allocated resources throughout most of the economy. During the 1950s, individual household farms were collected and made into large communes. But there were serious troubles along the way; China's economy suffered significant economic downturns during the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, the most devastating one being the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, which led to massive famine and reportedly the deaths of about 45 million people.Another crisis was known as the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, which caused widespread political chaos and greatly disrupted the economy. From 1958 to 1962, Chinese living standards fell by 20.3%, and from 1966 to 1968, they dropped by 9.6%.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Jude_bela)

Around 30% of the world's known mineral reserves are located in Africa. These include cobalt, uranium, diamonds, gold, and significant oil and gas reserves.Given this natural wealth, mining has exploded significantly on the African continent, coinciding with the tripling of global mineral and oil prices in the past decade.Over the period from 2000 to 2008, resource extraction contributed more than 30 percent of Africa's GDP, while the annual flow of foreign direct investment into Africa increased from $9 billion to $62 billion.However, despite being so richly endowed, and despite the mining boom of the past decade, Africa has drawn little benefit from this mineral wealth and remains one of the world's poorest continents, with almost fifty percent of the population living on less than $1.25 per day.So why is the richest continent in the world so poor?Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Jude_bela)