CPF members shortchanged by govt, misled by MSM

[Confuseous]

I refer to ST article “Can’t please all Fund members” and TRS article by Jeremy Chen. There are obvious half-truths in the ST article which Jeremy did not question. I will highlight ST’s half truths and Jeremy would do well not to simply regurgitate everything that he reads in future.

DPM Tharman says “The government doesn’t need to borrow from the CPF…borrow..at lower rates than from the CPF. If we had issued one-year treasury bills, the rate we would have paid over the last 10 years would have been 1.7 per cent on average”.

The government has said GIC invests for the long term and therefore requires long term funding. It is not prudent to borrow at short term rates and hope rates will stay low throughout, say, 10 years. The government did not know the rate would have been 1.7%, below the CPF rate, 10 years ago! When one requires long term funding for 30 years, say to buy a property, one does not borrow at 3 year intervals from to buy a financial institution.

The above is an example of a half truth.

Tharman then says “If we wanted to borrow through longer-term bonds, we could issue 10-year bonds and pay the market rate, without the plus one percentage point. CPF is actually expensive money for the government, not cheap money”.

Since July 1999, 15 years ago, CPF contribution rate for the Ordinary Account (OA) has remained at 2.5%. The 10 year Singapore government bond (SGS) rate was 4.56% in 1999. From 1999 to 2013, SGS rate fell below the CPF rate of 2.5% in only 3 out of 15 years! (see table below) At 2.5%, CPF IS cheap money.
To claim that CPF is “not cheap money” is not a half truth; it is non factual.

CPF members have been misled into thinking the government has been taking care of us with the “plus one percentage point”. From the above table, it should be clear we have been shortchanged.

How the government pulled this

http://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.c...ged-by-government-misled-by-mainstream-media/

 

[scroobal]

Thanks for posting this article and the link. The article by Philip Ang is crystal and explains clearly using published data why we have been short changed. Tharman has been caught out.

In essence, the cost of loans and returns from long term investments are different from short term. CPF is long term and this done after discounting the expected projected daily withdrawals from members.

 

[god_zeus]

cpf may be expensive

but in reality, they dont need to pay back the money

if they use one-year treasury bills
they have to ACTUALLY pay the interest using real money

CPF interest, they jsut get a goondu
sit at the PC
and type in the amount
in to your acc.

use cpf money
yijust use all sorts of excuses to 'defer' paying back,

if they borrow by treasury bill
they have to actually pay back the original sum when it expires

cpf money no need expirey date
but and push the date further using minimum sum scam

 

[Confuseous]

It is articles like these which are forcing the govt to come down extra hard on the internet.
They are unable to accept the fact on the need to evaluate the contents, rather than the avenue of info transfer.

 

[tanwahtiu]

What was the LIBOR rate for the past 15 years?

If your CPF 2.5% is below LIBOR than something is wrong. Even a monkey can tell between a good nut and a bad nuts.

I refer to ST article “Can’t please all Fund members” and TRS article by Jeremy Chen. There are obvious half-truths in the ST article which Jeremy did not question. I will highlight ST’s half truths and Jeremy would do well not to simply regurgitate everything that he reads in future.

DPM Tharman says “The government doesn’t need to borrow from the CPF…borrow..at lower rates than from the CPF. If we had issued one-year treasury bills, the rate we would have paid over the last 10 years would have been 1.7 per cent on average”.

The government has said GIC invests for the long term and therefore requires long term funding. It is not prudent to borrow at short term rates and hope rates will stay low throughout, say, 10 years. The government did not know the rate would have been 1.7%, below the CPF rate, 10 years ago! When one requires long term funding for 30 years, say to buy a property, one does not borrow at 3 year intervals from to buy a financial institution.

The above is an example of a half truth.

Tharman then says “If we wanted to borrow through longer-term bonds, we could issue 10-year bonds and pay the market rate, without the plus one percentage point. CPF is actually expensive money for the government, not cheap money”.

Since July 1999, 15 years ago, CPF contribution rate for the Ordinary Account (OA) has remained at 2.5%. The 10 year Singapore government bond (SGS) rate was 4.56% in 1999. From 1999 to 2013, SGS rate fell below the CPF rate of 2.5% in only 3 out of 15 years! (see table below) At 2.5%, CPF IS cheap money.
To claim that CPF is “not cheap money” is not a half truth; it is non factual.

CPF members have been misled into thinking the government has been taking care of us with the “plus one percentage point”. From the above table, it should be clear we have been shortchanged.

How the government pulled this

http://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.c...ged-by-government-misled-by-mainstream-media/

 

[Tuayapeh]

yeah....you get this kelingkiah to talk with his head shaking and scam sinkies.....everything will be ok....

 

[Equalisation]

Stop playing this stupid misleading mulberry bush game !!

Just give us back all OUR hard-earned CPF money at age 55 NOWWW !!!

For us ordinary citizens, it is money from decades of toiling !!