As far as I can see, you offer no constructive arguments and evidence to back your arguments beyond a bunch of rants. Hardly makes a convincing case. I normally do not respond to stupid comments but I think you might be too stupid to even know your own stupidity so I’m kindly pointing it out for you. And, if this is all you are intellectually capable of, I’m glad you are out of Singapore. We have enough idiots here as it is.

Wake up man! Were you born yesterday?
Don’t be so manipulated by the PAP.
You are either related to the PAP or a naive idiot.

You should be supporting the public and be really listening to their opinions not slamming their opinions in their face. Shame on you.

Shame of you to share your view with the public. Yes, you still a little baby as i can see. I was born there and work there and i paid my taxes and i cant see why CPF have to be extended to age 85. Who can live to 85? CPF fund has been invested in overseas by the PAP. Most probably making a loss in their books.

Govt might be covering up their mistakes but using this as a escape good to make Singaporean to fix this problems. Yeh! i cant see you have any knowledge about the fund. Govt. investing projects etc. Having you have any knowledge that Govtn loss money investing in China. Temask handled by PM’s wife also making a loss too. Update your knowledge.

I felt very disappointed about the Singapore govt. the way they handle this new changes in CPF. It sweat money from all Singaporean. Well, i beg if the govt. keeps on continue to do what they want and not listening to the public, it is the matter of time, the intelligent singaporean will find the way to migrate to overseas. Singaporean who listen enough what PAP have said for the past 40 years. Yes, LKY did a good job in managing the country, building a strong nation whereby Singaporean are well respected when travelling overseas. But this changes has gone beyond the hurts and sucking blood out of the ordinary citizen.

If my grandfather or father is still around to know about this. They will also against this proposal or changes of the CPF. They will said It is becoming like PAP is a blood sucking govt.

Pls refer your supporting of the changes to your grand parents. Only the idiot like you will support the Govt.

I feel sorry for my brothers and relatives who are in Singapore have to face this problems. Yes, angry about the changes even i am not affected at all. Because i have migrated overseas for the past 20 years and i see the pains that cause them a great deal. I will be watching carefully how PAP is going to suck Singaporean CPF and the world will be watching too.

I am proud to be Singaporean but right now i felt disappointed the way PAP determined to make changes. where is the royalty from the PAP the Govtn so far? They have forgotten so far. Yes, all Singaporean behave very quiet and obedient. That is not the case. Well, pray that justice can be done.

Looking at the message as the govt. mentioning about S$250 -S$300 a month for the old age to live under such a small income. It is better to die than to live. Old people working in the fast food counter for small sum of money to survive , i felt sorry and angry about the govt. paying such a small wages to elderly. NO value to elderly and no royalty to their contribution for the country and betrayed by PAP all the long.

All Singaporean are angry and feel betray by the Govt.

You better wake up and think hard. As far as i read your messages, i think you just born yesterday. You need to eat more rice in order to wake up. Unless you are member of PAP. or a spy agent of PAP. Shame on you.

I’m glad that we are on much more similar ground than it seemed!

I do not think I am inconsistent, though. It appears to me your definition of consistency is either 0% or 100%. It’s either black or white. I do think your arguments can be applied 99% of the time. Unfortunately, there will always be outliers and these people are the ones I’m concerned about.

I don’t think it is inconsistent to argue for a deviation from the norm for outliers. In reality, can we really make a case that 100% of the time the government has to interfere and vice-versa? I don’t know about you but I don’t think so. If there are exceptions to the norm, I can accept an exception to the rule.

Applied in the context of what I am arguing, if a person was told since age 25 he should have sufficient funds for retirement and when he/she actually retires at 65 but has insufficient funds to last till 90 due to poor planning (85 years 5 years of buffer), the rule of non-interference should apply. The person has full knowledge of his expected lifespan and didn’t plan for it. For someone who goes on to live beyond 90, I believe the state can intervene. In fact, you said in your earlier comment that you believe in free markets, but you don’t believe in it all the time. So why can’t I make a case that I believe in non-interference most of the time but not all the time?

Also, going by your argument, why do we have schemes like Public Assistance Scheme? Should the government not be consistent and not give any handouts at all? We are not a state that hands out free money, right? But the government still does it because there are always outliers.

Rounding up my response, I am perturbed at your lack of a sense of reality. If only reality is 100% all the time, things would be so much easier. Unfortunately, most of the time reality isn’t, so what we can only do is to be consistent most of the time and make an exception for outliers. This is an argument that you may or may not agree with but I hope it clarifies where I stand. I don’t think we are that far apart 99% of the time but where you and I differ is that remaining 1%.

However, if this is indeed your belief, then I hope you realise then that you cannot make an intellectucal coherent case for state help for those who realise they didn’t save enough in their working days. You cannot say, hey get the butt out of my saving plans and then go on to say, hey, the government have the responsibility to help me. If you think that the advance old is the state’s problems, then you must accept that there is going to be state intervention. For example, the state could seize more of your income (ie, increase taxes, and tax is compulsory!) to solve the problem. In this specific case, the government has chosen to take a portion of your CPF savings to solve the problem. There is no difference between the two at a fundamental level. Think about it.

No one has the perfect policy to deal with the issue, policy plans often involve tradeoffs, but one has to be consistent. I don’t fault you because I disagree with you. I respect a diversity of opinions and views. What I am pertubed about is your lack of consistency.

I never said you said that. I’m just pointing out that your analogy isn’t comparing like for like. As I pointed out, buying a car is voluntary but living in Singapore isn’t. Sure, the option that’s of “some sense of proportion” would be to migrate but in reality, how many Singaporeans can afford do that? By the line of reasoning in your analogy, the only other voluntary way of not living in Singapore, quite simply, is euthanasia. Of course, I could be wrong and I would gladly accept any alternative option you have.

Sure, we can have multiple policy thrusts to arrest the problem. I don’t disagree with that. However, I think that’s not my issue. My issue is the extent the state should interfere with an individual’s retirement savings. Perhaps, at an even more fundamental level, what is CPF? Is it my money or the state’s money? If it’s not my money, I have no right to question the introduction of annuities. If money in the CPF is money that belongs exclusively to me and only me, then why the hell is the state forcing me to use the money in a way I disagree with?

I can appreciate the positive consequences of annuities but that still doesn’t address the fundamental issue I outlined above. I believe we are arguing two completely different things here. I know full well what I am objecting to. I am objecting to the level of state intervention in my personal business. You can tell me taking multi-vitamins is good for my health and I should take it everyday but it’s another matter to strap me to a chair everyday and force me to swallow the multi-vitamins. Everyone has a certain threshold of the level of state intervention they can accept and I think that’s completely fair.

As for the compassion argument, I think you should read my entry and replies more carefully. You have not addressed my point on whether we can accurately predict our lifespan. If I can predict, of course I will plan for it to the very last day. The problem is that I can’t so the best I can do is to plan for the norm plus a buffer. Is it irresponsible of me to do that? Have I not been fair to the state to provide for my own retirement beyond reasonable expectations? If it so happens I live beyond reasonable expectations and my money ran out because of that reason, is it unreasonable to ask for aid? I would like to hear your views on this.

I have never said that people who do not want annuity should undergo euthanasia? Perhaps you should have some sense of proportion, no?

Contrary to government washing its hands clean, the annuity scheme is the right step forward to remove some element of risk to financing advance ageing. We have to assess its merits and feasibility rationally and objectively – something that I don’t think your post has done.

I fully agree with your sentiments that we should have compassion to help those in need, especially the old. However, your argument is premised on the fact that by forcing people to buy annuity, the government is not being compassionate to the advanced old.

Two policy thrusts need not mutually exclusive. We can have the annuity, and also have more social spending to help the advanced old. The annuity scheme can become a part of, but not the only, solution to the ageing population. Why not build in another layer of longevity insurance on top of other social spending for old people?

Facing with a rapidly ageing population, it would be prudent to have all options on the table, including longevity insurance as one line of defence. Because of the problems of asymmetric information, there is also a very good case why insurance of such nature should be made mandatory. All these should be analysed objectively and rationally. A linear argument that compulsory annuity equals lack of compassion is not very useful I feel.

Whatever you conclude from these debates, the PAP will proceed and do what it wants to do. However, I don’t see this as a long lasting reform because it is just a patch to stretch the existing scheme. At the rate prices are rising, we will come around again to talk about later withdrawal age, higher annuities and work longer/harder…in a few years.
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Remember the PAP embraced a policy that open the floodgates for foreign labor….(yesterday’s New Paper reported that the aging cleaning aunties at Food Republic have all been replaced by young China girls in beautiful black chongsams) causing what was once euphemistically called “structural unemployment”. The so-called solution the PAP put in place to delay the withdrawal age will prove to be a heavy burden on the older citizens given the structural unemployment we see today, what is left for many are menial jobs with long hours and low pay.
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Are things improving? Is this progress?

Freezing our money at 2.5/3.5% returns and lending it to GIC for overseas investment is not something normal or something done anywhere else in the world. The HK govt allows its citizen a higher return of 7%, Chile 11% even our neighbor’s EPF according to NMP Siew has far higher returns after adjusting for inflation. Locking the CPF minimum sum at a return just above inflation as measured by the CPI guarantees insufficiency and is not a solution that accredited financial planners will ever recommend. Why is the GIC allowed to take risk on citizens’ money that we cannot take ourselves for a good chance of a better retirement?
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The PAP insists the returns of GIC is delinked from citizens’ CPF…..yes it is delinked, so is the interest of this govt from the interest of the ordinary citizens. They spend much energy to argue for more compensation for their painful sacrifice and even more energy arguing why citizens don’t deserve a better deal. What kind of a govt is this? A world class one?

::::If the govt funds the cost, it simply means that the burden is shifted from the collective pool of older folks, to the collective pool of income-tax paying younger folks at that time. :::::

No. I was not talking about taxes. I was talking about funding it from the returns the GIC gotten out of freezing our money on a “as good as it gets” rate of 2.5%. Delinked or not…the money is there.

We are not talking about a poor govt that just gets by here and we are not talking about generous handouts to bums in our society. We are talking about a govt with the highest reserves per capita & 85 yr old citizens who through not fault of their own lived for so long.

I can’t see a better use for our reserves. …is investing in Shin Corp a better use? They seem more willing to do that than setting it for annuities.

Not all Singapore need the paltry sum to live on in 85.

The govt can set up a longevity fund to subsidies only those who need it.

This will bring down the cost of the scheme and will only benefit the intended grp of ppl.