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6/23/2014
More excuses not to return CPF money at 55
A blogger by the name of Gemini wrote an article on this issue and posted in the TRE. He/she quoted an ST article as THE good reason, and I repost a bit of it here,
Sunday Times, March 12, 2006 - Mistress island
Welcome to Pulau Amat Belanda, second home to many Singapore men who visit their ‘weekend wives’ there
There is an island near Batam that receives, almost exclusively, male Singaporean visitors.
When the men get off the boat, they pay 25,000 rupiah (about $5) to register with the security men. Their passports are checked, and details such as their names, IC numbers and Singapore addresses noted.
Then they head to the homes of their ‘weekend wives’, rooms rented in stilted wooden houses. This is Pulau Amat Belanda, 30 minutes by boat from Sekupang port in Batam, an island that is a red-light district all on its own.
Almost every male visitor to the Indonesian island has an ‘exclusive’ relationship with a woman there, to whom they give a cash allowance of between two million and five million rupiah ($350 to $900) every month to keep them from straying….
The reason to hold back the people’s life savings is because they kept mistresses, not because they lost their money and begging the govt for financial assistance. Let’s be very clear about the justification of Gemini’s rationale. It is the men’s amorous activities that justified holding back their money in the CPF. From the article, these men are rich and can afford it. Their scandalous lifestyle is not acceptable to many on legal, moral or social grounds, but is that a good reason to hold back their life savings in the CPF? Is this not a judgment call on moral grounds to keep the men from straying? Can this be the reason to be a blanket cover to hold all the men’s money in the CPF just because of a few sexy men? And can this be a blanket cover for the holding back of the CPF money of women as well?
This is really frightening. Imagine if the govt are made up of men and women who think like Gemini. The next thing they will do is to freeze the accounts of rich men and women in the banks. Come to think of it this is quite possible given that there are so many priests and priestesses among the few good men and women in power. And if such a reason is seen as good, right, logical, acceptable, I have many more good reasons to keep the men and women from withdrawing their monies in the CPF at 55. My list will be so long that it will fill a library and will take 56 man years to write them down. So I will spare you people the agony and time reading them.
Kopi Level - Yellow
This is a situation of being stuck between a stone & a rock.
ReplyDeleteIf they can reduce the cost of running the govt comparable to those small advanced nations leaders salaries and the expenditures, then CPF can be returned at 55, as promised?
ReplyDeleteThis is the price for believing in conmen. They said no one is robbing you of your money. But who is keeping your money away from you? If that is not robbing, what is?
ReplyDelete"Their scandalous lifestyle is not acceptable to many on legal, moral or social grounds, but is that a good reason to hold back their life savings in the CPF?"
ReplyDeleteWho is to judge what is scandalous or immoral?
To each his own.
Don't be too fixated that all those who preaches otherwise are really good.
Remember the two who got their manhood sucked in the backseat of cars or other nefarious hideouts? Without the revelations, we thought they were as whiter than white.
Dear RB
ReplyDeleteGemini only comes around from 21 May ~ 21 June and after that Cancer. Please allow Gemini to allow let of as much hot air as possible during that window period.
An honest writer would never indulge in slants and half truths. The article by Gemini was at best a feeble attempt clutching at straws.
Gemini is putting in motion an argument called the modus ponens. To those who confuse hopelessly the order of horses and carts (in this case (return all their CPF money to Singaporean men at 55 and mistresses), affirming the consequent is a fallacy which comes naturally. An occupational hazard of those who engage in conditional arguments, this particular fallacy fails to recognize that there is more than one way of killing a cat.
Here's an example:
When cats are bitten by rabid hedgehogs they die. Here is a dead cat, so obviously there is a rabid hedgehog about.
Gemini relied on an ST article to back the argument up but nowhere could we find the source of funding mentioned for those men to finance their sexual escapades came from their CPF retirement monies (oh lest I forget, by the way CPF does not return all your CPF monies when you turn 55...not even back then in 2006 when the ST article first appeared).
Let me remind Gemini that CPF members are made up of both GENDERS...males and females. When Gemini tried to slant the argument towards locking up the CPF so as to prevent all males turning 55 from having mistresses when they lay their hands on all their CPF monies, this is what I would call half truths.
Is it not, Gemini?
Next, you do not need CPF retirement funds to have extramarital affairs. Gemini, you care to name some examples? Or do you prefer blogging community to fill in the blanks?
I am more than happy to start off:
Politicians:
1. Michael Palmer (Ruling Party Member of Parliament 2006 - 2012 & Speaker of Parliament 2011 - 2012)
2. Yaw Shin Leong (Opposition Party Member of Parliament 2011 – 2012)
I believe both of them are Singaporean males cum (no pun intended) CPF members but yet to reach the age of 55, and they are having fun not with their CPF retirement funds and definitely not in an island near Batam.
Gemini, you need more?
fish 'n' chips
@ surprisingly lucid RB:
ReplyDelete>> but is that a good reason to hold back their life savings in the CPF?
The state will use any reason. This one is "convenient" and psychologically powerful. Because of its controversial and scandalous nature, it is a "fixture" in many Singaporean minds -- male and female, of all ages. Ref: "Psychological priming". (Favourite tool of the human manipulator)
>> The next thing they will do is to freeze the accounts of rich men and women in the banks.
No one actually knows what the "next thing" the govt is going to do with/ to CPF. Rest assured they will do something, as they always do -- every govt in the world tinkers with every public retirement system in the world.
The reason: Any thing they can just pull out their ass.
The only reason I know: Because they CAN.
@ fish 'n' chips:
ReplyDeleteNice explanation of a logical fallacy!
>> affirming the consequent is a fallacy which comes naturally.
Amen. And the cognitive bias/ heuristic "naturally" responsible is confirmation bias -- which is a very quick way to make predictions or decisions based cherry-picked or convenient evidence "confirming" what we already believe. (aware or unaware, doesn't matter)
Is it just only 1%? He should at least give some statistics to prove his point. At the moment, half of those cpf holders are women and does it also mean they keep mistresses? Pls come out with more convincing excuse and stop insulting the intelligence of the voters. At the moment, the guess that some top people have squandered the cpf is the most convincing of all.
ReplyDeletePossibly Gemini suffers from erectile dysfunction lah.Hope he is not the blogger Gemami that I know in TOC.
ReplyDelete