FIVE years is all it will take to ruin Singapore, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said recently.

Watching the financial crisis claim one victim after another in quick succession in recent weeks, I have been wondering if Mr Lee wasn't being too optimistic. Perhaps it won't take five years; perhaps a couple of years might be enough!

Just a year ago, Iceland was ranked by the United Nations Human Development Index as the most developed nation in the world. Its per capita gross domestic product was twice that of Singapore's. It had enjoyed a decade of high growth, fuelled by financial deregulation in the 1990s.And then it went bankrupt for the oldest reason in the world: It borrowed too much.

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