“One cannot be certain what will happen years down the road if we have a different government in power and how they will treat their obligations to Singaporeans,” she said.

Source: Today

Stop threatening us, PAP. Do your job instead and take care of Singaporeans’ CPF security in the long run.

The 4-per-cent guaranteed floor rate for their Special, Medisave and Retirement Accounts (SMRA) in their Central Provident Fund (CPF) will be reset at 2.5 per cent.

That means, the interest CPF members earn – while technically pegged since last year to returns from long-term government bonds plus 1 per cent – could, for the first time in years, fall below 4 per cent in reality.

Source: Today

Temasek plays shares in the market and took multi billion dollar hits.

Now the Singapore government tries to conserve its cash and turns around and starts cutting back CPF interest payment to its shareholders, ie the citizens.

Of course we all know that they are also trying all sorts of ways to delay us from withdrawing our CPF money.

We do not have confidence in this type of administration to manage our money. Please get out.

http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=2237

Excerpts:

In my view, the CPF Life scheme is highly deficient in that:

-the payouts are not indexed to inflation,
-the Government has not expressed any desire to co-fund the scheme, and
-the payout amount is subject to drastic change in the event that interest rates fall or life expectancies improve significantly.

The compulsory nature of the CPF Life scheme, or more generally, the compulsory nature of the Minimum Sum scheme itself transfers both control and responsibility of a person for his assets to the Government. This places a great moral responsibility on the Government to manage those assets in a transparent and accountable manner, and deliver returns that are on par with or even better than the best that the private sector can provide.

In particular, if both the Minimum Sum and CPF Life schemes are to be compulsory, the onus must be on the Government to play its part in ensuring that payouts remain relatively stable no matter how interest rates or mortality rates may change. This has not been done, and this deficiency form the crux of my critique of the scheme as it is currently presented.

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

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I don’t know

Our Singapore

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To observe, analyse, present our position, and call for action. Read our articles, give your views, and learn together with us.