12/20/2011

Robbery, robbery!

This was what I heard as I stepped into the office. This guy was so agitated and they have to calm him down. I took a close look at him to see if there was any blood on him. Normally robbery victim would be beaten up and there would be blood. But I could not see any blood, no blood. As the colleagues were comforting him he continued, they are going to rob you next month of $4,500. Now this is strange. How did he know that the robber is going to rob people next month and the amount as well. He said he read it in the paper. What? What kind of robber is this. This is damn classy man. Want to rob people and still advertised in the newspaper. This calls for respect.

As he continued everyone realized that he was talking about the raise in minimum sum for Medisave next month, from $27,500 to $32,000. Shit, he gave everyone a fright. This is not robbery lah. It is a kind and proactive govt planning the money of the people, and how to protect it before they are lost in gambling and investing. It is exactly this, with such caring and forward thinking govt that the Sinkies are having such a good life, progress, economic growth and so much money in their CPF. Without such good govt, they will have no money left in the kitty, probably losing everything in gambling or in the stock market.

This guy is too much. He is so negative in his thoughts. He could not see the positive side of things. The minimum sum is to help him to pay for his medical bills when he is old. Sure must pay and pay one. Putting aside more Medisave is just being prudent mah. And the big medical bill will definitely become affordable.

And there is Boon Wan in charge, sure got no problem one. He is one of the few good men left and he would want to do more good deeds for the people and for himself. This Medisave thing is going to save 2m people $9 billion. The amount of good karma created is immeasurable. Having the people save their hard earned blood and sweat money and preventing them from squandering it away. And by 2016, the amount could be $40k, lagi more good karma.

One point I am not clear. Is the CPF Board authorized to make this $9b decision? Does it have the authority to do so? Shouldn’t this be tabled in Parliament for discussion and approve by Parliament? My colleagues all agree that there is no need to go to Parliament. When your money is my money and my money is my money, what is there for Parliament to approve? I think I have to agree with this reasoning.

So we all got together to explain to this unhappy guy that he should be very happy about this Medisave thing. It is not robbery, definitely. And come 2016 he may have $40k in his Medisave. Shiok right? And if he suay suay need a by pass that cost $40k, he can tell the world that he got a by pass for free, all paid by his Medisave. No need even to come out $8.

We can see that our logic is getting through and he started to smile, and probably feeling very good about it. Well we have done a good deed.

17 comments:

I_Read_RedBean_Daily said...

5 Star Satire. But wait... this kind of victim very very common one... they will thank you for calming their fear , this blogger might even be thanked by pappy for the good work. Carry on sinkie !

agongkia said...

Good to have gradual increase to ensure you guys dun default on hospital bills after you are gone, but 32 K Medisave is not good enough.
It only ensure one have enough to pay hospital bill.Should have look further and explore the possibility of having something like Funeralsave.
Once I korng Ka Keow,Immediately my love ones can withdraw CPF Funeralsave with my death cert for funeral expenses.
From coffin to burial space,all can be ensure that I dun otarng them .
32K enough,next consider funeralsave, please.

Anonymous said...

"He is one of the few good men left and he would want to do more good deeds for the people and for himself". Unquote.

One good man in Sin indeed! There is a problem though! This bugger does not understand happiness at all neither the concept of Karma.

patriot

Anonymous said...

Question:
How to get back our CPF money?

Answer:
GE 2016。 Vote wisely。

Anonymous said...

Wait until you see how high the minimum sum is raised for 2012... I suspect it will be more than 5% inflation rate.....

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Read Redbean Daily, welcome to the blog.

Singaporeans must have about $100k in their Medisave to be enough for one medical bill which 80 or 90% of them would not need.

Anonymous said...

Anyone scheming to take the blood sweat money from the poor workers is creating bad karma. Period.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Don't be silly lah. If they don't take that money off you the fund will collapse... Since all the baby boomers are going to start getting sick and dying in vast numbers very soon.

It is a Ponzi Scheme. It needs feeding if the out goings are going to increase. If not IT WILL COLLAPSE!!

Be good dutiful citizens and feed your welfare monster. Stop bitching lah!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Seriously, I mean it. Don't touch the money of the poor for whatever reasons. Leave the poor buggers alone with their hard earned money. They are sweat money, blood money, not easy money from speculating properties.

There is not only political cost to pay. No one can escape the law of Karma.

Please, I am begging those people who have evil designs on other people's money, please don't do it for your own sake. You can't get away with it.

It's okay if anyone wants to disagree with this karma thing. Believe or not, no one is forcing it. What you sow you shall reap.

Anonymous said...

The ruling party MPs can keep quiet and buat bodoh. The opposition MPs must question the authority of the CPF to suka suka raise the minimum of Medisave.

Who authorised this taking of the people's money? Such a decision must be made by Parliament.

It is not public money, it is private individual's money. Make all the MPs accountable for this outrageous act by voting for or against it in Parliament after a thorough discussion.

Anonymous said...

Why are netizens asking or pleading to the Oppositions to do tis or do tat?
Issit not their duties to initiate every action needed with regard any policy that affects the people?

Anonymous said...

If the govt is sincere abt ensuring that we have enough funds in medisave they should stop charging 7% GST for medical treatment. My close friend's son had to undergo a laser treatment to save his eye, but even though the doctor was prepared to give her a hefty discount for the treatment, neither the govt nor the govt hospital would give her any discount. Moreover, to add insult to injury the govt will also charge her son another 7% GST over and above all their charges. If GST is designed to help the poor why is the govt imposing it on essential medical service to save my friend's son's eyesight? The govt would rather see the young boy lose his eyesight if she cannot pay the 7% GST instead of exempting her from this tax. In all other developed countries no govt charges GST on essential medical services, especially for young children.

Victor said...

Kudos for that witty satire, i enjoyed it so much!

As a young Singaporean i fear for my own future to the point marriage and children are not feasible options anymore.

I don't really understand why HDB needs to be so expensive and be open to speculations and FTs.

Why can't the simple solution be to HALVE the cost of the new flats. With 150k-200k less to worry about, a larger family looms closer to a possibility!

(oh come on you don't need a government scholar sent to King's college or Imperial college to learn public administration and get an MBA and spend 1 million SGD to be able to figure that out)

As Tan Jee Say suggested, if on average each teacher costs 50k per year to hire, 1 teacher will cost 500k in 10 years. To double the teacher population for 10 years, which is now 30k, we would need about 15 Billion SGD.

Instead of rolling 200 billion (double teacher population for more than 100 years, by the way & leftover cash for building schools) and sustaining collosal losses, why not take that money out and invest it back into Singaporean kids, cheapen housing, provide much more welfare to older folks and not challenge our benefactor generation with whether they want to eat at restaurants or hawker centres(that said, we should quintuple the number of hawker centres in Singapore to force food prices down by publicising stall rentals and BAN rental speculations period) and cultivate a gracious society by intentionally making the cost of living VERY LOW, to the point that the quality of life soars!

When people stop wanting more FINANCIALLY, they start to lower expectations and this stops the poison known as inflation from rearing its ugly destructive head. I never understood why wanting less is easily misconstrued as underacheivement over long periods of time, because it shouldn't be. Only goverments who are pompous would easily mislead themselves to think so.

We as a nation need to collectively want more of the intangible right things and less of the tangible ones. (YES this includes the goverment as well)

There are better ways of solving problems other than focusing merely on just money. How would we build a society if we were to craft one that would be free from the confines of the monetary system? (Its everyone's duty to think about forging our future)

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi Aunty Victor, long time never hear from you.

The problem is that we have got everyone into a nasty knot and cannot be easily unwound. First the high prices of housing, inflated to a level that bringing it down would hurt many people as well.

Associated with this is the high salaries for the top politicians and civil servants. Bringing down also difficult. And to continue with it means finding the money to pay.

It ends up with high inflation and depreciation in the value of money. And what we have is a balloon that must be continuously blown to grow bigger and bigger.

How would it turn out? The best strategy for those who can is to grab as much as they can while the going is good. And when it burst, the cushion is so big that it would not hurt them, or they could scoot somewhere else with the loot and live happily ever after.

Victor said...

I believe expansionary monetary policy only widens the gap and fuels social divide in the long run, and disillusions the believer into only short run happiness.

It will be too soon that when the bubble bursts, and it shall, that we will need to return this expansionary monetary loan of happiness with bleeding interest.

It is time for Singapore implement contractionary monetary policies to be quality of life kpi.

The problem also largely lies with the tinkering of perception. We have all been sold the bigger dream, thinking that happiness lies within the confines of material wealth and wantonness.

Speculating in housing, rolling your money in toxic investments (or any investment, really), going as far as to take a loan to make a gamble for the sake of monetary gain... paint it any other color you want, its greed, plain and simple.

I will go as far as to associate expansionary monetary policy as an agent of greed, with the basal assumption that just because everyone is greedy, this noxious house of cards stays intact.

What happens then, when society begins perpetuating selflessness? Will that be the deathknell of the monetary policy altogether?

I wait with bated breath.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Don't hold your breath for too long or you may blackout.

Expansionary monetary policy, quantitative easing... call it what you like is the "new reality ".

Apart from out and out default, widespread nationalisation.. the only other way is to "paper over" the problem by coordinated monetary expansion by the world's central banks.

At some point though -- deflation. BUT the response to deflation will be, yep you know it: massive monetary expansion

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

They really believe that the prices of properties, including 99 year flats can go up and up. They also think the average sinkies will have the money to pay and pay.

Only condition, like Matilah said, is to continue to print paper money continuously to give the illusion of wealth.

The thing is that the Americans and European countries are doing just that and are facing the consequences of such irresponsible act.

There is no free meal. Oops, I may be misquoting.