@Jerykk

You seem to subscribe to the idea of government spending being fixed and a zero sum game. It's not. If a prison rehabilitation program prevents a former criminal from re-offending and he finds gainful employment, then not only does the country derive potentially lost tax revenue but they avoid the cost of future incarceration. There's a good chance that's a net positive, even though there's initial money put down.

Your mentality fits a uniquely American approach to social problems that many in the rest of the developed world (Europe, Australia, Japan) would find strange, possibly even pathological. Being that, government spending should be kept to a minimum, and every policy should be based on market incentives (in this case threats), even in cases where taking a different approach would produce a better result. Now I studied economics and would be one of the first to say that this is clearly a better approach in many situations. But not all cases.

Your statement here is a good example:

"History has proven that fear is a very effective deterrent. Convince people that there are significant consequences for their actions and they'll think twice before doing something stupid.'

This is intuition, but your intuition is wrong. Firstly codified law does little 'convincing'. How many offenders do you think know the likely sentence of their crime before they are caught? If you agree then how likely do you think say a doubling of the prison term for shop-lifting going to have any effect?

There's no reason to test this because the data exists already when comparing pre and post juvenile offenders. The potential punishment leaps but the risk of re-offending barely changes.

As for more serious crimes, if the graveness of the death penalty is such a strong deterrent, then why does the US lead the charts among developed countries for murder and incarceration rates despite being one of the few that have it? Not to mention, the ones that do, Singapore and Japan barely ever use it.

Frankly, the whole notion that you can rationally deal with a person who is committing a crime (who is fundamentally acting irrational in committing the crime in the first place) is ludicrous.

Let's be serious. Your idea of punishment being a deterrent sounds nice but is not supported by any actual real world data. Meanwhile Scandinavian countries which do focus on rehabilitation have seen substantial drops in recidivism. There's the 'trust me it will work this time' and there's the 'supported by actual evidence' approach.

Your video, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Singapore's Gambling..., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 218 Badge!

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Singapore's Gambling... has been added as a related post - related requested by Lilithia on that post.

Posted this over on the main vid, but applies here: Looks like they saved most of the idea for the campaign, despite Germany winning http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2014/07/14/singapore-rejigs-anti-gambling-ad-after-germanys-world-cup-win/

And in for the goal save: http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2014/07/14/singapore-rejigs-anti-gambling-ad-after-germanys-world-cup-win/

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QFT: "Another example of the "you owe me" culture."

He should be reprimanded the way Singapore does it

Yeah, lets all pour into Singapore, most beautifully bereft city on the the planet next to Dubai, where spitting out yer gum (or saliva) in public gets you a duty-free caning. Great model city of unadulterated waste and beauty...Oh, let's not forget all the happy people there who'll never see the top of that horrendous structure in the thumbnail, unless they're part of the club.

"Here's my surprise for you honey, another shit-heal bun-in-the-oven just like us!!"

Singapore attempts to raise birthrate with rap song has been added as a related post - related requested by grinter.

"Surprise! I'm pregnant!"
"Oh... well, I'm sure that the white AND red wines you drank with lunch won't deform the baby..

..also, did you just hand me something you peed on? I'm glad we didn't open the box at lunch."

Guess they got down on National Night?
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Singapore-attempts-to-raise-birthrate-with-rap-song

Singapore Tourism Board - See where the world is heading has been added as a related post - related requested by grinter on that post.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Singapore-attempts-to-raise-birthrate-with-rap-song

Singapore attempts to raise birthrate with rap song has been added as a related post - related requested by grinter.

Ironically, HK is quite a safe city, and firearms are fairly rare. People assume the contrary due to HK crime films being one of its main exports, but in fact they refer to a by-gone era (60s - 80s, when triads were active and cops corrupt).

Hong Kong might be the most free-market / right-wing / libertarian economy in the world, but its administration invested quite a lot in its police, and as a result not only are they quite respected by the locals (very few cases of abuse or corruption, and the majority of these reported by... police officers), but it's also become one of the safest large cities in the world*.
But please -- don't tell that guy roaming the comments with his rants on 'statists ruining everything', he would not understand.


*That does not involve an overreaching police state, like Singapore.

> "dividing large jurisdictions into many smaller jurisdictions would be a drain on commerce"

I don't think this is necessarily so. Both ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy prospered due to multiplicity of competing city-states. The more the competition between states, the more they will have to lower taxes and make the environment business-friendly. It creates a meritocracy as those states that fail to attract "clients," citizens and businesses will not survive. Small states make it very easy to do business with them, as in for example, Singapore, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Bahamas, etc. Small jurisdictions adapt their laws to make it easy to do business with them from abroad. Only big ones, like the US, make it a hassle to deal with from outside the country.

A free market society is as close to a meritocracy as you can get.

In a free market you can only really do well by providing goods and services that others want.

A common legal framework comes from commonality of culture, not from state control. And cultures adapt to each other for purposes of commerce.

Let commerce operate freely and people will find a way to adapt legal protections for successful and peaceful commerce. A small jurisdiction that "rips off" foreign business partners will find itself very quickly with no business partners and.being small, have a hard time surviving. Out of self preservation they will want to be trustworthy for others to want to do commerce with them.