The government has increased the CPF Minimum Sum to “maintain its real value”, they claimed.
The CPF Minimum Sum Has No Inherent Value
Now, think about this – what is the purpose of the CPF Minimum Sum? It is a marker of how much the government wants Singaporeans to retain inside the CPF.
Thus the CPF Minimum Sum by itself has no inherent monetary worth because it is only a marker. So, it doesn’t quite make sense for the government to claim to want to increase the CPF Minimum Sum to “maintain its real value” when there isn’t really a “value”.
The Real Value of Our CPF Monies Is What Needs To Be Increased
However, the thing that has inherent monetary worth is our individual CPF accounts themselves. Thus if the government wants to “maintain any real value”, then the value that the government should maintain is our CPF itself.
And the only way to maintain the real value of our CPF is to increase the CPF interest rates to above inflation.
The Government Is Not Interested In Increasing The Real Value Of Our CPF
However, take note of how the government has constantly raised the CPF Minimum Sum but has depressed the CPF interest rates since 1999 to be at 2.5%.
What this shows is that the government is clearly not interested in “maintaining the real value” of our CPF.
If so, why then does the government want to “maintain the real value” of the CPF Minimum Sum?
The PAP Wants To Increase the CPF Minimum Sum Because…
This is why: the government claimed that it wants to “maintain the real value” of the CPF Minimum Sum. Technically, this doesn’t make logical sense.
The CPF Minimum Sum has no inherently monetary worth. It is only a marker. It is only a line that can be shifted up and down.
Thus what you have to question is why the government shifted the marker upwards?
As explained, the CPF Minimum Sum is a marker of how much the government wants Singaporeans to retain inside the CPF. Thus the only logical reason for the government to want to move the CPF Minimum Sum marker upwards is because the government wants Singaporeans to retain more of our monies inside the CPF.
This has nothing with “maintaining any value”. The only motivation is that the government has a want to increase the marker and has used “maintaining the real value” as an excuse to do so.
The PAP Does Not Want Singaporeans To Retire
However, as the government has been unwilling to increase the real value of the CPF itself (which is what is really of value) but would keep shifting the CPF Minimum Sum marker upwards, what this means is:
(1) The real value of the CPF doesn’t grow because the interest earned has been less than inflation.
(2) As the CPF Minimum Sum marker keeps being shifted upwards, more and more Singaporeans have to keep more of our monies inside the CPF and fewer and fewer Singaporeans would be able to take the monies from our CPF out.
Do you see the dual pressure from both ends which forces more Singaporeans to first, not be able to save, and second, not be able to take our CPF monies out, such that Singaporeans cannot retire?
CPF Minimum Sum Increased, CPF Real Value Drops: More Singaporeans Cannot Retire
If you follow this logic flow so far, let’s summarise:
(1) The increase of the CPF Minimum Sum marker is not to “maintain any real value”. This marker has no inherent monetary worth. The only reason to increase this marker is to trap more of Singaporeans’ CPF monies in.
(2) The CPF interest rates have been depressed at 2.5% since 1999. The real value of the CPF has thus diminished.
(3) For the real value that the government should maintain – the CPF itself – the government has shown that it does not want to maintain it. The government does not want our CPF monies to grow.
(4) For something without any inherent monetary worth – CPF Minimum Sum, the government pretended to want to “maintain” it. In effect, what they did was simply pushed up the CPF Minimum Sum.
(5) The net effect is that because the real value of the CPF itself is dwindling and the CPF Minimum Sum marker has been pushed upwards, this logically means that more Singaporeans are not able to meet the CPF Minimum Sum and are not able to withdraw our CPF monies.
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How The PAP Hid Their Real Intent
(A) This article wants to show what Singaporeans already know – the PAP wants to increase the CPF Minimum Sum onlybecause they want to trap our CPF monies inside (for their own use).
(B) This article also wants to show that the PAP’s rationale for increasing the CPF Minimum Sum – to “maintain its value” – is a fallacy and has no logical or technical sense.
(C) Finally, this article also wants to show that for the only thing with real inherent monetary worth – our CPF itself – the PAP has instead refused to increase its value.
Read: The PAP does not want to increase our CPF monies but want to incense the CPF Minimum Sum to trap more of our monies in.
Thus by doing this logical deduction, it has been shown that the PAP is hypocritical and two-faced. They never meant to increase the value of our CPF at all but pretended that they wanted to.
The real reason for the PAP to depress the real value of our CPF and to increase the CPF Minimum Sum, as explained, is to force Singaporeans to work longer since we are not able to withdraw our CPF monies.
The PAP Has Failed As A Government
The PAP is cunning, treacherous and manipulative. By distorting the truth, they had wanted to pretend to Singaporeans that they wanted to “help” us when in actual fact, they wanted to trap us further.
This is irresponsible. The PAP has reneged on its role as the government and has taken over and repurposed government for their own intent.
So, what is this intent, if it is not to take care and protect Singaporeans?
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In view of the unreasonable increase in the CPF Minimum Sum, we will be organising an event on 7 June at 5pm to call for Singaporeans’ CPF to be returned to us.
The PAP has used government to pursue their own hidden agenda, while forcing Singaporeans to live more difficult lives. The PAP has taken our retirement for themselves to earn high interests on it, while devaluing our CPF and our ability to retire.
This is wrong. We have to stand up and speak up against this scourge. It’s time to stand up and come together to speak up against such wrongdoings.
You can join the Facebook event page here.
Roy Ngerng
*The writer blogs at http://thehearttruths.com/