Ranted on Monday, January 04, 2010 - 10:56 AM
omg,
this is disturbing
The ruling party has been encouraging Singaporeans to work for as long as they can. Though Singapore is a first world country, its citizens enjoy few social welfare benefits unlike others.
Most Singaporeans have to depend on their CPF savings for retirement. Before 2003, they are able to withdraw their CPF monies in one lump sum when they reach 55 years of age.
Now, they have to keep a “minimum sum” in their CPF before they are able to do so. As of now, the minimum sum has been increased to $117,000.
Unless one belongs to the top 5 per cent of the income group, it is almost impossible for ordinary Singaporeans to accure that amount in their CPF.
Furthermore, a substantial amount of their CPF savings will be used to finance the mortgage loans of over-priced HDB flats. The ruling party claims that rising prices of public housing help to “create wealth” for Singaporeans, but that capital value will not be unlocked unless one migrates elsewhere.
The monthly median wage of an average Singapore worker is only $2,600 compared to more than $150,000 for a minister and $250,000 for the prime minister of Singapore.
It is an irony that Singapore is “wealthy enough” to lose more than $40 billion dollars of its reserves in failed overseas investments (Wall Street Journal, September 2009), but its people are struggling to make ends meet.
The situation isn’t helped by the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore which help to keep wages stagnant for the Singapore worker.
The ruling party isn’t sympathetic towards the suffering of ordinary Singaporeans in the street. While PM Lee claimed in his New Year Day message that Singaporeans will remain a “top priority” for his government, his father MM Lee Kuan Yew urged Singaporeans to put up with the “tide” of immmigration which has since grown to become a “flood”.
In a recent interview with the National Geographic magazine, Lee Kuan Yew continues to support the ruling party’s liberal immigration policies though he is aware that many Singaporeans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants.
“Over time, Singaporeans have become less hard-driving and hard-striving. This is why it is a good thing that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants.” Lee was quoted saying.
Lee describes the country’s new subjects as “hungry,” with parents who “pushed the children very hard.”
“If native Singaporeans are falling behind because the spurs are not stuck into the hide, that is their problem,” he quipped.
It has indeed become a big problem for Singaporeans that they are not having sufficient savings in their CPF for their twilight years, not that the ruling party led by its overpaid millionaire ministers cares much anyway.
~~~~~~E.N.D~~~~~~
