TR EMERITUS

Some of my fans would have noticed that I report regularly on erratic bus arrivals, and add the cheeky comment - Tell KBW (KBW is the initial of our transport minister), Here are my reasons. I am familiar with databases. I know that all the bus arrival times at each stop are captured in our databases. This is the data source to feed the expected arrival times to bus apps. With this data source, it should be possible for the Land Transport Authority (and ultimately the transport minister) to monitor the scheduling of the buses. They can find out: a) Are buses being dispatched on time? b) Are the bus arriving at the expected intervals? c) Are some of the buses being bunched, i.e. arriving together? Bunching of buses is a regular occurrence. I report the cases that I observed in my Facebook. On a few past occasions, I also reported to the LTA and the bus company, but they did not respond. Some people have replied in my Facebook - the bunching could be due to traffic conditions. I agree that this is a possible cause. But it could also be due to other reasons, such as dispatching at the wrong time. If someone in the LTA or the ministry of transport takes the trouble to analyze the database, they will be able to identify the following: a) Which were the cases of bunching? b) Are they any pattern involving certain services? If the supervisor is asked to report on the reason for the bunching for all the cases that are identified by the data analysis, they will take steps to rectify the source of the problem. The problem will be solved quickly. It is a miracle! If nobody bothers, i.e. KBW or his ministry or LTA, it is likely that the situation will continue to be unresolved and may get worse as time goes by. I suspect that things are indeed getting worse. It does not require any multi million dollar investment and several years to solve this problem. It can be solved within a few months - if KBW pays attention to it. So, help me to tell KBW whenever there is a cockup in the bus arrival times.   Tan Kin Lian        Read More →

I saw a good post about a universal pension here and we should be supporting this. As a fellow sandwiched Singaporean, it will be our turn to depend on pension on day. I'd like to say that many of us have had enough of the poor CPF payouts, changing goalposts and risk-pooling of our hard-earned savings! At first, CPF was supposed to be withdrawn by all at 55, then they change it to need minimum sum, then now, they come up with this CPF LIFE thing, where everyone's CPF is used to risk-pool each other! The reason they give is because many Singaporeans are living longer, and many are not able to receive enough CF payout. This is stupid as many of us may not live as long, and our precious hard-earned savings are now used by the government to subsidise those who live longer! It should be the government that is responsible for taking care of the aged, and not used us, and now they put us into the same scheme to pay for each other! This tactic is a sneaky attempt to purposely "insure" those who live longer, at the expense of those of us who have contributed fairly to the system, as the interest earned after 65 are used entirely to risk-pool/subsidise the the rest. Imagine if you have $300,000 in your RA, and the 4% interest per year of $12,000 are not allocated to you, but pooled together for the benefit of the group. This is $12,000 that should belong to us, and not be pooled together! This is a hypocritical move, telling Singaporeans to rely on ourselves for retirement and we cannot raid the reserves for pension, but somehow it is okay to use our money to allow others to rely on us! Why is the government ring-fencing every generation together like this? Why use old people money to risk-pool with other old people? This will punish those who have worked harder in their youth, when their interests are used to pay for others who lived longer. A more effective method will be the pay-as-you-go method, where we raise our taxes to support the elderly, and leave retirees' hard-earned savings alone! Again, we already know from Josephine Teo that more than 75% of retirees do not even receive $500 from their CPF, which is not enough.for retirement in the world's most expensive city. This is why I support the pension tax for all Singaporeans to pay for a proper universal pension scheme. Many elderlies already do not receive much from CPF due to not being able to hit minimum sum, and are embarrassed to rely on their children, due to decades of conditioning that work equates self-worth and many elderlies want to continue in order not to be a burden. I agree with the universal pension scheme, but maybe I'll set the pension at $500. $1000 seems to be too high to be properly funded, and raising tax onerously to pay for it will defeat the purpose, and merely shifts the burden from the elderlies' children to other hardworking Singaporeans. The burden should be shifted in a fair manner that makes sure everyone pays their fair share. Hence, a figure of $500 is better. If every working adult pays $200-$250, it will be achievable as we work around 40-45 years and will receive the pension for around 20 years after 65. To make sure everyone pays, the government should implement a flat rate of $200-$300 for everyone to contribute to, and everyone making more than $3000 a month has to pay this $200. Those who make more than $5000 should pay $300 instead, and shoulder more of the burden as they can afford it. Overall, this will be enough to give every elderly an old age pension, regardless of their income situation. We may also get rid of redundant targeted social assistance this way. Currently, the government spends more than $320 million on silver support scheme, and gives out $750 every quarter to more than 140 thousand elderlies, and $140 million on ComCare assistance, which gives around $400 on average. This is just the cash disbursement, and does not include the hefty administrative costs incurred in means testing, interacting with them and paying government workers. The result of spending so much money only gives less than $500 on average to needy Singaporeans, and all this welfare spending comes with ridiculous conditions, which penalises the sandwiched class. Many lower middle class Singaporeans are currently locked out of these scheme, just because their children are doing ok financially, but the old people are unwilling to rely on their children. If we have a universal pension scheme, we will be able to cut spendings on discretionary welfare payous like Silver Support and ComCare, as well as closing down redundant government departments. Of course, many Singaporeans may not be happy to pay $200 or $300 a month, but this is necessary in order to make sure our elderlies are not being forced to work at an old age. Take a look at any hawker centre and you can see many hunchbacked elderlies, still working at an old age, still being subjected to the indignity of labour. Meanwhile, countries poorer than us like China has proper pension scheme for the aged. This is a moral disgrace and reflects the selfishness of our people. Paying $200 a month to will be a proper way to say thank you to our Merdeka Generation, a way for us to take care of them in their old age. $200 for a person making $3000 will be affordable, as well as $300 for those making $5000. Rich people having cushy jobs making more than $5000 a month should be ok with paying $300, as this money goes to a good cause. Meanwhile, the CPF minimum sum can be lowered for Singaporeans, and we scrap the controversial CPF LIFE system where returns are risk-pooled, to be fair to our retirees. Going back to the retirement sum scheme will be the best, as this pension will now take care of those of us who live longer. Overall, this pension scheme will be extremely beneficial to all Singaporeans, especially lower-income old people, middle income families who are sandwiched and the government too. We are a first world country but CPF alone is not enough. Scrapping CPF LIFE will make a lot of us happy, and implementing this scheme instead will be the best course of action for our future. It is now time to assist our sandwiched class and take care of the elderlies, and not rely on each of us to risk-pool each other.   Fellow Sandwiched Singaporean      Read More →

I shall talk about PM Lee's proposal on extension of Retirement age and increase in CPF rates for older workers. As a Pioneer Citizen who have lived through all the policy twists and turns of the Government under Lee Hsien Loong, his National Day Rally Speech was just a regurgitation of old and tired ideas of how he tried to show that he was taking care of the elderly citizens in Singapore. What his Cabinet Ministers did was merely to tweak with the CPF rules to achieve his political goals of keeping Pioneer Citizens and now the Merdeka Citizens happy so they remain loyal supporters of his government. Sure, he succeeded well in the 2015 General Election with his Pioneer Generation Package which targeted about half million elderly voters. To enable the younger population to better understand how he played his old game with the elderly citizens, who most probably were oblivious of the real objective of the government was to entrench its power by winning the elderly citizens' votes, take a look at the key changes of the CPF contributions over the years: 1. Contribution rates for all age groups were the same when the CPF scheme was started from 1955 until 1988; 2. 1986 - Employers' contribution rate was cut by 15 %points following 1985 recession; 3. 1988 - Lower rates for workers aged above 55 were introduced to encourage employment 4. 1999 - To regain Singapore’s cost competitiveness and preserve jobs after a year of recession, employers' contribution rates were cut by 10 %points for workers aged 55 years and below; 5. 2000 - Rates were restored progressively as economy recovered; 6. 2003 - Cut in employers' contribution due to economic restructuring; and 7. 2005 - Contributions for employees aged above 50 to 55 years cut to increase their employability It is evident from the above changes in employers and employees' contribution for older workers that they were the "whipping boys" whenever the government wanted to help employers to lower their manpower cost by cutting their CPF contribution rates to employees and hence reduced the workers' earnings or just simply cut the contributions for employees above 50 to 55 to increase their employability. Most of the Pioneers Citizens in my cohort experienced this callous manipulation of the CPF scheme to suit the political objectives of the Government of the day. This obviously affected the savings in the older workers' CPF retirement accounts. Even worse, the Government, with NTUC's support, allowed employers to cut the salaries of older workers by 10% in exchange for the their agreement to extend retirement age from 60 to 62, (This happened some time in 2004/05). Again, this negatively impacted on the older workers' CPF retirement accounts. On Aug 18, 2019, in his ND Rally speech, he proudly announced: 1. retirement age will be revised gradually from 62 to 65; 2. re-employment age will go up from 67 to 70 (because most elderly people want to continue working); and process will start from 2022 and completed by 2030; 3. CPF rates will go up for workers age 55 to 70 with those aged up to 60 getting the full rate of 37% CPF contributions by employer and employee. Won't such CPF increase affect the employability of the present day older workers, which was the reason to cut CPF rates in 2005? Of course, this won't have happened without the Tripartite Workgroup represented by NTUC. Is the NTUC really looking after the interests of older workers in Singapore? What kind of wages and nature of work can these elderly workers in the 70s get? The Government uses contradictory arguments to push through CPF policies to the detriment of the older workers. With increase in CPF rates for older workers, their take-home pay is likely to be lowered and even more of their money get locked up in the CPF account. What elderly citizens need are cash in hand, not menial jobs in hawker centres or public toilets. PM Lee has also confirmed that there will be no changes in the CPF withdrawal policies or withdrawal ages, can still withdraw some money at age 55 and start their monthly payments from age 65. It is public knowledge that both the withdrawal policies, age of withdrawal and amounts are daily gripes seen so often in social media. Neither the Government nor the NTUC is concerned with the pain of the elderly workers. Yet, it is more important to please the business community than to look after the interest of the older workers. A support package to help businesses adjust to these changes will be announced in next year's budget by DPM Heng Swee Keat. (ST 19/8/19). So, fundamentally, it will be the Singapore tax payers who will be paying for the increase in CPF contribution rates for older workers. Sadly, there is nothing genius in PM Lee's National Day announcement of CPF increase and extension of retirement age for older Singapore workers. And finally, it is counter-productive for the citizens to continue to support a Government that is unable to think creatively to find new ways to improve the welfare and living conditions of its people.   Kok Ming Cheang      Read More →