Lee deplored the result of what he referred to as the "more than 2000 years of Confucian indoctrination that made people in Singapore, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Vietnam averse to risk." He went on to say that Singapore's brightest young people became scholars because that is the most respected rank according to Confucius, and then later went on to become engineers, accountants, and managers for big multinational companies.

He rounded off his comments by saying that the Confucian model of striving for scholarship was a philosophy from a bygone agrarian age that has lost its relevance in today's world.

It would appear that the widely respected Senior Minister is issuing his country a wake-up call by drawing attention to the fundamental changes now happening to the business climate around the world, including Asia. He implies that by following the old ways, many positive opportunities for adding to national and individual wealth are now being be bypassed, simply because they expose would-be entrepreneurs to significant risk of failure, which they were culturally ill-prepared to face.

Lee said entrepreneurial zeal was an advantage Americans had over the rest of the world and that [now] only in America would a man dare drop out of Harvard to follow a dream - citing Bill Gates and Microsoft. Nevertheless, this situation can change, and Singapore is already undertaking the necessary moves, he said.

Singapore has never been a nation that stands still, or lets the grass grow under its feet. It is this dynamism which has enabled it to survive virtually unscathed through the Asian crisis, while its neighbors floundered, like drowning men gasping for air.

"We are now entering a phase where ... there are going to be many little start-ups, many failures and some big wins," Lee said. "So we've got to change the mindset."

"We are already revamping our education system for what you call lateral thinking, thinking out of the box," Lee said of Singapore's past dependence on rote learning.

Lee's statement indicates a lifting of Singapore's game, evolving the nation into a role of being more of an innovator and originator, of moving into the rich heartland of intellectual property, an area that has been primarily responsible for creating much of the America's wealth in recent years.

But this is a tricky game. Where does such intellectual innovation come from? Is it the result of the unique features of the US education system, and, if so, can those features be duplicated in the tropical climate of Singapore? How is this innovation related to the US political and economic climate, and, if so, how do those of Singapore compare?

It may be that if Singapore hopes to compete with the US on its home turf, figuratively speaking, much wider and deeper changes in Singapore than simply revamping the education system may be needed to make such competition truly effective.

It will be interesting to observe this situation develop.