Beware of broken political promises?
According to the Straits Times “Pioneer Generation Package 2? Depends on next generation: Chan Chun Sing” (Jan 26) – “But the introduction of a “PGP 2″ will depend on how the next generation answers two questions, he said on Monday at a dialogue during the annual Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Singapore Perspectives conference.
Mr Chan described these as: “Will we have the means? Will society have the same values (as now) to want to honour those who contributed?”
More importantly, the package – which eases the medical costs of the first generation of Singaporeans – cannot be a political promise, added Mr Chan.
Singapore must avoid a situation where government subsidies and policies “turn into an auction in the elections”, he said in response to a question posed to him and Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean at the dialogue.
“We have seen this happen all over the world. To get elected, somebody will stand up and say, ‘I promise more’,” said Mr Chan.
The only way to guard against this is to have an enlightened electorate that asks tough questions of political parties which make such election promises, he added.”
The sad reality of SG50
As we get our almost daily dosage from our 150th Press Freedom ranking media, of so much that we have to celebrate for, after 50 years of independence, the reality is that we have about a million Singaporeans struggling to make ends meet (about a quarter of Singaporeans earning less than half the median income, with PRs generally earning about 25 per cent more than Singaporeans, and 30 per cent of households spending more than what they earn).
Although we have one of the highest credit card interest rates in the world – financial institutions were recently allowed to increase the interest rate on credit cards.
If you owe $10,000 on your credit cards, and you pay $205 a month – at 25 per cent interest – it will take 234 months to pay off your debt.
In other words, you would have paid $47,970 in over 21 years, or $37,970 in interest.
And I have not even factored in any penalties for any late payments over the years.
For licensed moneylenders – there is no interest rate cap for borrowers who earn over $30,000 a year.
So, whilst we have one of the highest credit card interest rates in the world – our savings deposit rates have consistently for a very long time been one of the lowest in the world, at around just 0.1 per cent.
To make things even worse – we have the highest pensions contribution rate of 37 per cent in the world, but our CPF pays the lowest real rate of return among all national pension schemes in the world.
We have the most expensive public housing ((about four times annual incomes) and one of the most expensive healthcare and university education for citizens in the world – relative to our wages which in real terms have hardly increased in the last 16 years or so
We have one of the most expensive public transport fares in the world when measured on the basis of adult monthly travel passes.
“Will we have the means?
Against all of the above, we consistently have the lowest Government spending among developing and developed countries in the world, and consistently the highest Budget surpluses on a per capita basis in the world ($36.1 billion in FY2012)
Win battles lose war
TRS Contributor