Higher costs

Yikes! A bad time to be moving back to Singapore from the US. In addition to inflation listed below, US dollar is down about 15% in the last year : (

Overall, Singaporeans paid 9.2 per cent more for food than they did a year ago because of more expensive items such as cooked food, rice, milk products, fresh poultry and vegetables.

Housing costs also went up by 13.4 per cent on year because of higher accommodation costs and electricity tariffs.

Sports reflect society

This LA Times article compares the three big medal-winning countries at the Olympics:

Crystal-ball gazers expect each of the three sports powerhouses to do well next month in their traditional areas of strength -- table tennis, badminton and diving for China, swimming and track and field for the U.S. and boxing, wrestling and other "combat sports" for Russia -- with all three elbowing one another in gymnastics....

The sports systems that produce Chinese, American and Russian Olympians reflect their nations' cultures, experts said. In the U.S., sports are fun, there's a lot of participation and athletes have a lot of choice over the sport, coach and training method they pursue.

In China, with its 1.3 billion potential recruits, most people don't participate in sports. There isn't enough land or money. But its elite, state-run system is also more seamless.

Recruits are plucked from regular schools and from their families at 6 or 7 years old and placed in one of 3,000 special sports boarding schools after passing height, body mass and related physiology tests. Training is intense, and youngsters are expected to spend years doing what they're told without complaining, in the interest of regional and national glory.

"The view is that the state paid for you, and you pay back in gold medals," said Brownell, who trained in the heptathlon at a Chinese sports university in the 1980s. "It's generally seen in a positive way: The country is your mother -- don't let your mother down."

Russia is a blend of the two. Its state system has become increasingly market-oriented since the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Its coaching is world-class, and the system has been energized by oil wealth and national ambition, although it's struggling to recover after losing a lot of talent.