Does singapore really enjoy surpluses every year or are we actually in debt?

http://therealsingapore.com/content...-surpluses-every-year-or-are-we-actually-debt
[h=1]DOES SINGAPORE REALLY ENJOY SURPLUSES EVERY YEAR OR ARE WE ACTUALLY IN DEBT?[/h]




Post date:
21 Feb 2015 - 11:02am












Did we went through Austerity?

“In economics, austerity describes policies used by governments to reduce budget deficits during adverse economic conditions. These policies may include spending cuts, tax increases, or a mixture of the two Austerity policies may be attempts to demonstrate governments' fiscal discipline to their creditors and credit rating agencies by bringing revenues closer to expenditures; they may also be politically or ideologically driven. “

During the economic collapse and the great recession of 2008 , Europe and america with high unemployment and high debt ratios to gdp went through several austerities measures:

Money Printing
welfare, and other social spending are cuts
Retirement ages raised and government pensions reduced
increase in taxes
increase in fares of buses and trains

Austerity measures are pursued because of the fear that the government might not honor its debt liabilities .

Now let's look at Singapore. Singapore boasts billions in government surpluses each year and these surpluses are kept in the sovereign wealth funds. Technically, a government always in surplus doesn't need any Austerity measures as their revenues are always higher than their spending anyway.

So how come in 2008/2009, Temasek announced the lost of US$40B and several town councils lost on Lehman, then we saw:











CPF minimum sum increase
draw down age for withdrawal, postponed
utilities, increase
Bus and train fare increase
Ponzi population schemes
Public housing, increase drastically

Question: is our government in serous trouble but simply refusing to reveal it?

Why did we see such things if they government is always in surplus and has billions hoarded in reserves which are not transparent?

Singapore Government's debt ratios are high, in 2014, stand at 105.5% to the GDP. USA, with high debts still lower than Singapore, US having 101.

I understand that this is because the government's 'debt' is also calculated including what it owes citizens via the CPF model. The problem is that it can just delay withdrawal to push back having to honour the debt if and when it pleases.

In Greece, Austerity measures led to the oppositions taking control of the government. In Singapore, for the first time, a GRC fell to an oppositions.
Similarities ?

Will we see in 2016 elections more oppositions coming in ? I believed so. Whatever Singapore Government propaganda machineries , it is not going to work.

Aziz Kassim
TRS Contributor

Aziz Kassim better look at our public debts levels. It is shockingly high even after factoring CPF.

That is why our Min sums keep going up. Because SG garmen wants to mess around with our public debts.

correction on the first sentence. "did we go through austerity?" not "went".

sinkie singlish is atrocious.

The country is in surplus but the people r in debts!

Most of the unwise speculative investments of temasek and GIC are losses so got to define them as long-term investments (50 years or 100 years).
No returns in the short-term,so got to defer monthly CPF payouts to when u are 65 or 70 or 80 yo ???
All those stupid complicated financial jargon , statistics and graphs are only to hoodwink,confuse and mislead the CPF members.

enterprise2 said:

The country is in surplus but the people r in debts!

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Only Familee and their Cronies.

Singapore has lots of surpluses. The wealth of the government can be seen by its cashflow, just like a corporation. Our government is able to make payroll every month and pay its bills to ensure that the civil service and military can function like clockwork. In most countries, when there government has too much debt, they will usually slash government budget or reduce pension payouts. Our CPF is able to meet its cash payout obligations every month since the beginning. Singapore is doing fine. Don't be taken in by opposition IB propaganda!

I wished that oppo spend more time thinking of how to manage their TC properly than spending useless time to fix PAP

JohnTan said:

Singapore has lots of surpluses. The wealth of the government can be seen by its cashflow, just like a corporation. Our government is able to make payroll every month and pay its bills to ensure that the civil service and military can function like clockwork. In most countries, when there government has too much debt, they will usually slash government budget or reduce pension payouts. Our CPF is able to meet its cash payout obligations every month since the beginning. Singapore is doing fine. Don't be taken in by opposition IB propaganda!

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palden said:

I wished that oppo spend more time thinking of how to manage their TC properly than spending useless time to fix PAP

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Town councils shouldn't exist at all. All HDB estates should be managed and maintained by HDB and its contractors. It's more cost-efficient for the citizens and we wouldn't have lost the billions in the Lehman scandal. Public housing for the citizens shouldn't be politicized. If you want to politicize the town councils, why not take it further and dissolve HDB and allow the town councils to design and build public flats?

JohnTan said:

Singapore has lots of surpluses. The wealth of the government can be seen by its cashflow, just like a corporation. Our government is able to make payroll every month and pay its bills to ensure that the civil service and military can function like clockwork. In most countries, when there government has too much debt, they will usually slash government budget or reduce pension payouts. Our CPF is able to meet its cash payout obligations every month since the beginning. Singapore is doing fine. Don't be taken in by opposition IB propaganda!

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Singapore runs a Fiat currency. There will always be sufficient cash to pay salaries

Just invite more millionaires to make Singapore their home. They will bring in their millions and dump into the economy. That will artificially support the economy. And its working.