Slow down, spend more

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Many elites aim for accuracies and best solutions. They have macro views on the population as a whole. They have helicopter vision of what is good for the country.

But we should ask ourselves. Who are the ones with the problems? It is obviously not everybody. The middle-class and the rich don't have Minimum Sum problems. It is the poor that have problems.

The real world is never perfect. Everybody knows the official retirement age is 65. But people leave the labour force between 55 and 65 for valid reasons - structurally unemployed, become homemaker, sick, considered too old by HRM, unemployable, retired by employers, look after parents, wages too low, etc. Money no enough! That's a practical problem.

People will scratch their heads in amazement if they preach to them on longevity:
- "Not enough income and you tell me to save more? How ah? You seow ah? You want me to eat grass ah?"
- "I already kena cancer. I need treatment, not lectures on the harmful-effects of smoking or the benefits of brocoli!"

What will happen if CPF withdrawal starts at 65 instead of 55? There will be political turmoil and tsunami!

You can't make the price of a bowl of wanton noodle go back to $2.00 or your utility bill to $25. What's done cannot be undone. There is a real problem and monetisation of HDB flats is a practical solution. We cannot think long run. In the long run, we are all dead.

As reserves are our only resource, the government has been obsessed with growing them. But the economy has been on a roller-coaster starting from 1998 and the government has been in panic mode since then. So it drives economic growth by using foreign inputs, collects more revenue and cuts back on subsidies.

Income inequality, high costs of living, unaffordable healthcare, expensive housing, inadequate retirement savings, 6.9M Population White Paper, are all derived issues.

There is one simple solution to the myriad of issues - slow down, spend more. That's why Article 5(2A) is not brought into force. The situation is not so difficult/complicated.


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