Monday, July 14, 2014

Myths Busted

Real generals like Patton are famed for their tank busting exploits. Lesser warriors like Tan Chuan Jin have to settle for myth busting. Not that he is doing too well on the battle front of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) wars.

One of the "myths" he set his sights on: the minimum sum is a shifting goal post. In his warped mentality, the number changes only with the cohort affected, therefore no change is involved. The kind of perverse logic that broke the original promise of releasing the retirement funds at age 55. Nothing has changed, so he says, only the rules have changed. Poor Dr Toh Chin Chye must be rolling in his grave.

There is one myth that is really propagated: the CPF is our retirement package. Firstly, it cannot be ours by any definition in the English language since we are hapless to the twisting of the access rules without our consent. Then, there are the millions siphoned to the secretive "reserves" portion of the public housing pricing, which has resulted in the anomaly of the Singapore asset-rich cash-poor social phenomenal. Don't even get started on the returns from the CPF - the only guys guaranteed a cushy retirement at the Bahamas are the fund managers. The sickness has now spread to the Medishield Life sham. Opposition members have asked on our behalf why Medishield needs such a large reserves account, a similar question once levied at the National Kidney Foundation board. As in the case of the NKF fiction, there was no credible answer.

Oh, there is one other myth being perpetuated. Paying millions to the ministers is necessary for sustainable government. I see they are now encouraging Singaporeans to start walking, just the nudge we need to start voting with our feet.

13 comments:

  1. Meaning – Under a PAP government;
    - the priority is to collect more money
    - rather than spend money to benefit Singaporeans

    Why spend money to benefit Singaporeans?
    - because Singaporeans is Singapore.
    - when Singaporeans benefit …. Singapore benefits
    - But PAP government of course does not agree with this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Words, words, words. That's the order of the day. Forget about what really counts. We should have communicated better is the standard response for any cock-up. Has the son of Devan anything to do with all the myth-busting talk since his appointment as the Chief Government Communication officer?

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  3. Many more red dot myths:
    "your CPF is guaranteed by garmen" (thru printing more money or incurring more IOU to be paid by taxpayers? so taxpayers guarantee their own CPF?)

    "GIC and THL do not manage your CPF, the Sing garmen does". Ok, if City harvest's loops to disguise money flows is found legal, I agree that the monkey loops vehicles used to "separate" CPF from other reserves are effective protection from investment losses (and legal) by GIC and THL.

    "Medishield Premium is going up to provide better coverage for all, especially the elderly with no insurance, and are heavily subsidised." Bro, specialist follow-up visits every 2 months to TTSH cost my neighbour $39 to $69 (after subsidy), no procedures, some generic medicine refill, the consultant did not even touch him. Asked 3 questions, sent him off for medicine and next appointment!

    "FT create jobds for locals" - right, heard of "phantom local workers" who lend their names and NRIC to the towkays so they have enough "local workers" on paper to satisfy FT quota? heard of a shipyard owned by an Indian FT who hires 7 locals and 700 Indians from India and Bangla? How come MoM takes no action?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Myths:

      "Never forget that we are servants of the people." - Lee Hsien Loong

      Lee Kuan Yew is the founding father of Singapore.

      Delete
    2. Phantom local workers is the main reason why the unemployment rate is 2%. For every 40 year old PMET replaced by a pinoy or indian FT, the employer needs to find average of 3 "local" phantom NRIC to pay $400 into these phantom local workers' CPF accounts. Usually these are their parents, old relatives, sometimes just some other FTs who have been given citizenship. Sad how statistics are being manipulated in red dot. When they clean this up, unemployment rate would be over 10%, and close to 30% for those between 40 and 55 years old, and my guess is much higher for the males of minority races.

      Delete
    3. Lee Kuan Yew is the founding father of Singapore has got a new title aftee it was revealed that he and an ex-president worked for the Japanese Army during WW II.
      The New Title is more fitting for both as the Jap then were killing the Chinese everywhere they were.

      Delete
  4. "Help" is coming your way. Be prepared to work beyond 65, downgrade your flats to free up cash and pay more premium for CPF Life to get added benefits.

    Meanwhile, our CPF money is whittled away by lower-than-inflation interest, overpriced flats, big medical bills and unexplainable minimum sum.

    When this PAP government talks about helping you, be very afraid. They are not going to help you to retire comfortably but to squeeze out what is left of you that is valuable. Talk about squeezing blood out of stone.

    Stop trusting words like "affordable", "help" and "subsidy" from the PAP government's mouth. We may end up paying with our life if we do.

    ReplyDelete
  5. To them, good communication means shouting their stance out loud, and making sure it's the last word in the press. Not rebutting vigorously any dissenting views means incompetence, better to be illogical and loud than letting the opposing views go unchallenged and therefore appear weak and wrong. So much precious time is wasted plugging holes of a broken system to preserve an image of competency which has long been destroyed by the accumulated cock-ups. And still they persist in "image preservation", apply lipstick to the pigs instead of working on weeding out idiotic policies cooked up by incompetent officials up and down the chain, or plugging holes here and there in the rusting oil drum. How many fingers do they have? Would be quite funny if we weren't not all victims.

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  6. The real myth (as opposed to mythical myth) is that your CPF money is your money - but you cannot do as you please or withdraw when you like.

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  7. In today's Shit Times, CPF came up with an advert which ended thus :

    "With CPF, working Singaporeans do not have to pay for the retirement benefits of those who have retired. Every dollar saved in CPF will benefit you and your loved ones".

    But with the CPF Life Scheme, aren't those with shorter lifespan being compulsorily forced to pay for the retirement benefits of those with longer lifespans ?

    Unless they are taking money from either LKY or LHL's pockets to pay for the life annuities of those with long lifespans, so who are they still trying to bluff ? Why are they still lying to us ?

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  8. Singapore is PAP and vv

    "Citizen" is just a term to describe "voter"
    Which they manage with absolute mastery and without opposition.

    If they could, they would remove voting and have to themselves an island they use to generate money.

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  9. SINGAPORE MYTHS
    -----------------------------------
    1. PAP is on our side.
    2. We own our HDB flats
    3. Our HDB flats are subsidized

    ReplyDelete
  10. Even with the same cohorts the Minimum Sum keeps changing. The minister and Tharman conveniently 'forgets' about the Medisave Minimum Sum which is pegged to the prevailing amount irrespective of when you reach 55 years old.

    ReplyDelete