First thing first. What is the scam? How do you identify it?
Background - Once upon a time when the HDB started building flats and into the early to mid 80s, the HDB rule was that if you bought the flat from them, and you don't want it anymore, you must sell it back to them at the same price you paid. This eliminated any speculation and kept the price of the flat low. Correspondingly at the same time, the PAP realized that CPF deposits were rapidly increasing, and at some point down the road, must be repaid to the plan holders. In fact, if you look at the list of most indebted govts in the world, Singapore is high on the list because most of this debt is owed to CPF, since the govt borrows heavily from CPF.
SO the hakka jew Old Fart had to rack his brains. The question is "How can the govt avoid paying back as much of the CPF as possible to the peasants, and how can they keep as much of it for themselves to squander on Stomachsick Holdings and GIC?"
Some brilliant scholar suggested to decouple the flats from HDB and let them be traded like private properties. Eg, getting loans from banks, etc. This enabled them to artificially raise the price of the HDB flats, to eventually the sky high levels you see today. At the same time, they knew that sinkies would not be able to afford the new flats, so they allowed the use of CPF both for the down payment and more importantly for monthly payments of the housing loan. Which jackass would encourage their citizens to use their retirement money for money rent payments? Apparently the PAP. This is killing 2 birds with one stone. On the one hand, they can raise the price of HDB flats and earn more money. And on the other hand, they can make the peasants deplete their CPF to pay for the flats, and hence have less money to pay back to the peasant at retirement.
How to defeat this scam?
The most proven way I have seen is to simply treat all your CPF as current account. In other words, treat it like your normal every day account. Every month, your contributions go in from your employer and yourself, and your housing loan goes out. If you want to use it for term life insurance, also can. You can also use it to pay for your education or your children and siblings education. Do what u can to deplete it, so that it matches your monthly contribution. Don't forget, all these expenses, in any rational thinking country would be treated as current or household expenses. So, at the end of the day, the main object is to use up all your monthly CPF or more.
How do you then get a pension and retirement income?
A class mate of mind had the foresight to buy into an insurance product went she started working. Every month, she contributed to it. Even when times were hard financially for her, she would still pay it monthly. After 35 years, she collected a lump sum from it. She said it was close to $1 million. And its free from any restrictions, like minimum sum or what ever shit. She could have chosen to collect a monthly sum until the day she died. Or collect a monthly sum up to a certain age. There are many insurance companies that sell such products. They have many names for them, eg, annuity, life variable annuity, etc. and the variations are wide. But the end result is that you get a significant lump sum or monthly payment when you are retirement age. In her case, her insurance product turned out to be much more profitable then the CPF OA if she had left the money in there.
In civilized countries without so many gongkias, monthly expenses like rent is paid with after tax dollars, not with retirement funds. So in the Singapore case, you have to reverse that. This is how you play and beat the game. Does it take discipline, yes. You have to make that monthly payment to the insurance company. But It works.
Background - Once upon a time when the HDB started building flats and into the early to mid 80s, the HDB rule was that if you bought the flat from them, and you don't want it anymore, you must sell it back to them at the same price you paid. This eliminated any speculation and kept the price of the flat low. Correspondingly at the same time, the PAP realized that CPF deposits were rapidly increasing, and at some point down the road, must be repaid to the plan holders. In fact, if you look at the list of most indebted govts in the world, Singapore is high on the list because most of this debt is owed to CPF, since the govt borrows heavily from CPF.
SO the hakka jew Old Fart had to rack his brains. The question is "How can the govt avoid paying back as much of the CPF as possible to the peasants, and how can they keep as much of it for themselves to squander on Stomachsick Holdings and GIC?"
Some brilliant scholar suggested to decouple the flats from HDB and let them be traded like private properties. Eg, getting loans from banks, etc. This enabled them to artificially raise the price of the HDB flats, to eventually the sky high levels you see today. At the same time, they knew that sinkies would not be able to afford the new flats, so they allowed the use of CPF both for the down payment and more importantly for monthly payments of the housing loan. Which jackass would encourage their citizens to use their retirement money for money rent payments? Apparently the PAP. This is killing 2 birds with one stone. On the one hand, they can raise the price of HDB flats and earn more money. And on the other hand, they can make the peasants deplete their CPF to pay for the flats, and hence have less money to pay back to the peasant at retirement.
How to defeat this scam?
The most proven way I have seen is to simply treat all your CPF as current account. In other words, treat it like your normal every day account. Every month, your contributions go in from your employer and yourself, and your housing loan goes out. If you want to use it for term life insurance, also can. You can also use it to pay for your education or your children and siblings education. Do what u can to deplete it, so that it matches your monthly contribution. Don't forget, all these expenses, in any rational thinking country would be treated as current or household expenses. So, at the end of the day, the main object is to use up all your monthly CPF or more.
How do you then get a pension and retirement income?
A class mate of mind had the foresight to buy into an insurance product went she started working. Every month, she contributed to it. Even when times were hard financially for her, she would still pay it monthly. After 35 years, she collected a lump sum from it. She said it was close to $1 million. And its free from any restrictions, like minimum sum or what ever shit. She could have chosen to collect a monthly sum until the day she died. Or collect a monthly sum up to a certain age. There are many insurance companies that sell such products. They have many names for them, eg, annuity, life variable annuity, etc. and the variations are wide. But the end result is that you get a significant lump sum or monthly payment when you are retirement age. In her case, her insurance product turned out to be much more profitable then the CPF OA if she had left the money in there.
In civilized countries without so many gongkias, monthly expenses like rent is paid with after tax dollars, not with retirement funds. So in the Singapore case, you have to reverse that. This is how you play and beat the game. Does it take discipline, yes. You have to make that monthly payment to the insurance company. But It works.
