Moneybox

Singapore’s Polo Boom

Indian polo players compete in the Chief Minister’s Polo Cup final at Bison Polo Grounds in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad on September 14, 2013.

Photo by NOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images

Jeremy Grant reports that the sport of polo is booming in Sinagapore:

Membership at the Singapore club, founded in 1886 and one of the oldest in Asia, has swollen to 1,600, up from only 100 two decades ago. Together these members own 126 horses, more than double the number in 2010.

Polo is just one example of the tiny city state’s rising wealth. It has the second-highest number of millionaire’s per capita in the world, after Monaco. About one in every 30 Singaporeans is a US dollar millionaire, according to WealthInsight, a research company.

There’s only so much a giant country like the United States of America can learn from a very small one like Singapore. But I do think the way that Singapore has not only caught up to western living standards but largely surpassed them is an important antidote to certain kinds of techno-pessimism and defeatism about the world. With good policies in place, people can accumulate tons and tons and tons of wealth. And unlike Singapore, the United States has tons of useful natural resources and abundant land and political democracy. Historically we’ve been a lot richer and frankly we ought to be richer. But we’re not.