Friday, September 21, 2012

Playing The Numbers Game

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is also our Finance Minister, which makes it difficult for us to doubt his arithmetic. But when he said the male median earner who enters the workforce today can achieve an IRR of 70% over his working life, one starts to speculate what he had to drink at the two-day Singapore Human Capital Summit 2012, held at Resorts World Sentosa.

Fortunately the guy put in charge of our finances was referring not to the more common accounting measure of Internal Rate of Return, but to something called Income Replacement Rate. The OECD definition refers to the old-age pension replacement rate as a measure of how effectively a pension system provides income during retirement to replace earnings which were the main source of income prior to retirement.

Make it clear, we lesser mortals don't have a pension scheme to speak of. What accumulates in our Central Provident Fund (CPF) account is our lifeline when employers decide we are no longer welcomed in the work place. Putting away 36 cents (age 36 and below) out of every dollar earned into the kitty should be enough buffer for a rainy day. Even with 7 cents deducted for medical contingencies, 29 percent is a pretty decent savings rate.

What the key findings from the Ministry of Manpower-commissioned study don't say is that a big chunk is swallowed up by "subsidised" housing. It's nice to hear that a $200,000 flat has been sold for say, $800,000, but a similar size flat would probably be asking for a similar price. Unless the long term plan is to cash in the enhanced asset, and move to Johore, Batam or Bintang, the majority will still end up asset rich, cash poor. The "independent" study estimated the rosy IRR's using all CPF savings accumulated by a member up to age 65, including savings above the Minimum Sum. They are assuming people actually have CPF balances in excess of the Minimum Sum. Until they show us the mathematics, it will just be any variant of the $100,000 flat afforded at $1,000 a month.

One is reminded of Mitt Romney's gaffe about middle income Americans earning between $200,000 and $250,000. The reality is that such an income is only enjoyed by the top 4% of the population. The median US income is around $50,000. But if you are pretty rich, you may well mix only with people in your income bracket, and assume everybody else is also well off.

14 comments:

  1. The Minister and that independent study group do draw very decent salaries are in occupations that are very much insulated from effects of globalization etc.

    Strange that the past years reports from the CPF about cohorts after cohorts with ability to meet the Minimum Sum at age 55 were not that encouraging.

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  2. I am quite disappointed. I don't buy their fairytale. I don't buy their HDB flats too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are selling on Hopes and Wishes to the coming of age citizens not on us - the old timers who were conned time and again.Noticed they are always talking on time frames of 20-30 years into the future. Promises made more than 10 years ago but not fulfilled were forgotten.Remember the Swiss standard of Living, remaking of Singapore, exhortation of taking bitter medicine and belt tightening during bad times and promises of more good years?

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  3. I'll keep my argument short and simple.
    "Vote Opposition if you want to discover the truth"

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  4. If you are aged 55 and above when you sell your property, you are required to refund the Minimum Sum deficiency, or the principal CPF withdrawn for the property plus the accrued interest, whichever is lower. If your savings were already invested in the house, where to find the extra cash to settle the "refund"? Many an upgrader, or downgrader, has been caught in the shortfall of a transaction when the bridging loan fails to materialise.

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  5. "....when employers decide we are no longer welcomed in the work place."

    And when we are no longer welcomed, the entire theory collapses.

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  6. When DPM Tharman has to emphasise everything is alright with the CPF scheme, all the more I am worried. It seems like for now and in the not so distant future, the only way to retire comfortably for majority Singaporeans is to sell their flats and migrate. But that's only possible if the property market is still strong in the future and that the government does not impose additional rules to prevent citizens from monetising their flats and moving out of country.

    It is sad to know that there was a time when everyone was confident that CPF was a good scheme to help people retire comfortably, but not after it has been exploited to fund "subsidised" public housing that is pegged to market rate and provide cheap money for sovereign wealth funds' "merry-making".

    For people who still maintain your hope, you should ask DPM for the arithmetic and assumptions or what he has been smoking.

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  7. Discalculia? Can you trust someone who makes these grotesque, egregious claims:

    "But on all the other essential items, the bulk of the revenues we collected through the GST system comes from the upper income group and the foreigners." So the rich eat more rice than the poor!

    "...our enhanced housing grants for lower income families are such that a family with a monthly income of as low as $1,000 can now purchase a small flat."

    on raising healthcare spending to 6% of GDP from 1.6% "...If it is GST, it has to rise to 20 percent. If it is corporate income taxes, it will have to rise to above 40 percent. If it is personal income taxes it will have to rise across the board with the top line rate moving to 60%, very high." Actually it's not a bad idea - tax the rich more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vote PAP. You're Not Using Your Civil Liberties Anyway.

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    2. PAP: God's Way of Proving Forecasting And Planning is Full of Crap

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  8. Vote PAP if you love to be screwed with nonsense, half-truth at your own expense.

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    Replies
    1. Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed With Lightning.

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  9. One should read the writing on the wall by now: the reason why he spoke only for the younger generation is telling; as pointed out by others, their calculation assumes continued blowing of the real estate bubble; the current generation will not have a place to live if they sell their HDB flats because they cannot afford another property. The next generation still has time to flip properties like Kong Hee to attain that IRR of 70%,

    By extension, to sustain the real estate bubble, it also means there must never be any let up in FT inflows, and no intention whatsoever of stopping the money laundering inflows. We will be permanently on the top among Asian countries when it comes to inflation for years to come.

    There is only one catch - real estate bubbles always end in tears, kojack and his MAS gang have been drinking Bernank's kooaid for too long.

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