Bleak future for Singaporeans

From: "truth"
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:29:02 GMT
Local: Fri, Jul 31 2009 11:29 pm
Subject: Bleak future for Singaporeans

Here's a research paper by Mukul G. Asher and Amarendu Nandy from the LKY
School of Public Policy, NUS on Singapore's Policy responses:

This link provides a ppt presentation of the paper:
www.econ.hit-u.ac.jp/~kokyo/sympo-feb07/paper/asher-Tokyo.pdf

The entire paper (20 pages) can be found here if you have access:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119391592/abstract

I got the link to this paper from Mathia Lee's site [Link]. She has a copy
of the 20 page paper and you can request a copy from her (email :
mathia...@yahoo.com).

If you have time, read the ppt presentation yourself and form your own
opinion. The conclusion you MUST read....given this fellers come from LKY
School of Public Policy, it is surprising what the paper says about our
govt's policies. Many of my postings attempt to shed light on what the govt
is trying to accomplish with its policy formulation....here's a paper by
academics that discusses the same issues with greater rigor. After reading
what they wrote, you'll think our govt and its policies are far worse than
what I describe them to be. I've been too kind to the PAP with my postings!

Here is a highlight of the main points on each area, the statements are all
taken from the slides:

On CPF

" CPF system will not be adequate to meet the ageing challenges."
"There are several reasons for this inadequacy. A single-tier, involving
mandatory-savings, can never provide adequate replacement rate; or address
inflation and longevity risks; or provide survivand disability benefits
(Asher and Nandy, 2006b)."

"A well designed multi-tier system is needed, as has recently been
recognized in Chile."
"Design and governance issues also act against the adequacy objective; and
so does the tendency to use the CPF system as short-term stabilization
instrument."

"Given its multiple focus, the proportion of contributions withdrawn during
the pre-retirement period is very high, averaging 81.8% during 2001-2005
period (Table 4).
The share of contributions devoted to retirement is therefore low"

On Welfare and Poverty

"Ad-hoc social welfare schemes of Singapore are also inequitable (Ramesh,
2004)."

"Singapore has no official poverty line".

"Relative poverty is half of the median per capita household income. Approx.
27% households".

"Less than 5% of households in the low income group are beneficiaries of
state funded systems; and only 0.07% of the population received public
assistance in 2004."

"The amount of assistance is kept deliberately extremely low at around 5-8%
of per capita income."

Conclusion
"It has relied on single tier mandatory savings scheme (CPF) for housing
(primarily); for health care (minor importance quantitatively but major
ideologically); and retirement".

"It has many schemes, designed to increase social-political control of the
ruling party, with stringent means-testing".

"The end result of these social policies has been to make individuals and
their families bear disproportionate risks of old-age and low incomes with
grossly inadequate social risk pooling which is the hallmark of the OECD
countries"

"The CPF system, and the current extensive set of schemes will become even
more inadequate, inefficient, and inequitable".

posted by LuckySingaporean