TL;DR – This lifelong critic says he’ll vote for a one-testicled half-blind retarded Pomeranian over a PAP candidate.
After reading that CPF post from Gooderfeed, I got a little obsessed with the CPF topic and went on Quora and Reddit to read what other people think about it.
While there’re a lot of ranty posts and #ReturnMyCPF calls on Facebook, I personally believe that the majority of Singaporeans are better off for the CPF. And if one is rational enough about things and takes the trouble to better understand our rather complex retirement scheme, I think most will see its merit.
I mean, it’s forced savings from our first jobs and without it, I’m fairly certain that we wouldn’t be able to achieve such high home ownership in Singapore.
Just try chatting with the young people in developed countries or cities like Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea. Most of them are unable to afford to buy a home in their 20s and most of them can still barely afford one even in their 30s.
Hong Kong family says they prefer living in Singapore and vow to “never go back to Hong Kong”
For instance, the average age of home ownership in South Korea is 43.
Also, too many people underestimate the magic of compound interest.
Tens or hundreds of thousands over a long period of time can earn you a helluva interest. So much that the more financially savvy Singaporeans actually want to put more money into their CPF accounts. Where else can you have steady growth and practically zero risk? And the fact that you cannot touch it until a certain age means you will not be tempted to draw some money out for what six-month sabbatical or that rare Hermes bag.
Anyway, I’d chanced upon a post on Quora from a fellow Singaporean who claims to be a lifelong critic of the ruling party, and that he would vote for half-blind and half-brained dog against a man in white. Whoa, he sure doesn’t mince words.
BUT even someone with so much detest for the PAP government has only good things to say about our national retirement scheme, CPF.
His beef is apparently with PAP’s CECA/FT policy.
I worked with “foreign talents” in a tech company. Here’s my experience
Here, read what this Singaporean (Za Pravdu) posted about the CPF on Quora.
I hate to be saying this, given that I am a lifelong critic of the PAP government.
With “lifelong critic” being the polite way of saying that I will vote for a one testicled half blind retarded Pomeranian if it runs against any PAP candidate.
The CPF scheme is a good thing for Singapore, and Singaporeans.
I’ll say this again. CPF is good for you goondus.
Looking at the way things have panned out in Singapore, a large (and I mean really large) proportion of Singaporeans cannot be trusted to plan properly for their own retirement or even their health care in their silver years. They cannot be trusted to even save for a rainy day or budget their expenses properly without rolling credit card debts.
Hence, our “beloved” “nanny” has taken the shotgun approach by forcing everyone to subscribe to the system. Yes, they’re paternalistic with a holier than thou know it all attitude. But this time they got it very right.
As someone who is just a bit above the median income level amongst Singaporeans, who’s looking at retirement at 65 in 20 something odd years, I can safely put aside around SGD 200,000 in my retirement account, and start to draw down on that from the age of 65 (which is when I plan to stop working). Hell, if I could I would work till 70. Those 5 extra years will make retirement so much more comfortable.
All this with a fully paid up flat above my head, with a maxed out locked away medisave account for healthcare needs.
Once I hit the age of 65, I’ll be getting a monthly payout of anywhere between $1181 to 1669 depending on which scheme I’m subscribing to. And all I have to do is to live past the age of 75 to 77 (12 years max after retirement. Easy Peasy) and the payments would have exceeded the principle sum (not accounting for interest). And this goes on for as long as I’m alive.
Hell. If I hit 95 years old I would have had gotten a cumulative payout of over $600,000, three times the principal sum. Imagine if you’re like your grandparents and hit all the way till the late 90s.
How is this a bad deal? Looking at it, there’s no way if the CPF scheme was not there I would be able to save up that much. In Singapore’s context all that money will be frittered away on nonsense like a newer car, a nicer house, restaurant meals and vacations to Japan, leaving nothing to retire on.
This numbers look even more ridiculous for the more affluent, who are able to lock aside nearly double of this sum. Or those who have gotten CPF bequests from their deceased parents and who are staring at 4 times the basic retirement sum.
The CPF scheme only looks bad to those who do not study it and work towards using it for yourself. It’s purest form is social insurance. To make sure the ninnys who cannot take care of themselves are taken care off and thus not weigh down on everyone else.
Here is why (and how) parents should try to beat the CPF system
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