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America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

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Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#281

Post by mikestorrent »

Grimburger wrote: post #261
ggm wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Dubai, many of the migrant workers are ineligible for post retirement life in Singapore and so despite any mandatory savings will not represent any kind of burden on the state compared to delivery of health and housing and care costs. So they are functionally productive and net positive to any scheme about post work funding for the community.

This is being entirely disingenuous and is completely different to what goes on in Dubai. I have lived there and can rattle off plenty of criticisms about the country but complaining about migrant workers who clamour to work in SG is not one of them. The vast majority of Singapore migrant workforce are Malaysian citizens who live over the border in JB, you can rent a 2 bed apartment there for $300 a month and eat out…

> while commuting each day to a developed country

Must be a fully automated border or something? That kind of commute would be unthinkable between e.g. Canada and the USA for most folks

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#282

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

everforward wrote: post #204
skrtskrt wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The magnitude of the investment also probably makes it impractical for anyone but the very wealthy to retire before that starts paying out... But they can pull out for housing right? That's an enormous portion of most people's expenses. If I didn't have to worry about housing, I could be living large on less than half of my salary, I would certainly semi-retire at least.

Sort of. So far as I can tell, you can withdraw to buy housing but I don’t think you can pay rent out of it. The loans are also 75% max loan-to-value so I think until you can get 25% of the purchase price in your account you have to pay CPF and rent (or live with family). Also, not an economist, but I suspect the forced savings has a wildly inflationary effect on housing prices. You can’t do much else with the money…

> the forced savings has a wildly inflationary effect on housing prices

Housing prices are inflationary independent of CPF, because flats in Singapore are powerful investment vehicles. For HDB flats, however, there is means-testing and rebates to the amount of ~50%, sufficient for anyone on the 30th percentile and above to afford.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#283

Post by wmanley »

mikestorrent wrote: post #281
Grimburger wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is being entirely disingenuous and is completely different to what goes on in Dubai. I have lived there and can rattle off plenty of criticisms about the country but complaining about migrant workers who clamour to work in SG is not one of them. The vast majority of Singapore migrant workforce are Malaysian citizens who live over the border in JB, you can rent a 2 bed apartment there for $300 a month and eat out…

> while commuting each day to a developed country Must be a fully automated border or something? That kind of commute would be unthinkable between e.g. Canada and the USA for most folks

US borders are awful. I guess you get away with it because the USA is so large that most people rarely leave, so rarely have to experience it.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#284

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

InkCanon wrote: post #12

Singapore's economic policies are complicated and often misdirecting. I'll break down the misconceptions. The primary purpose of CPF is not a pension scheme. It is structured as a massive forced bond purchase scheme by citizens. Financially what happens is the 37% of citizen income buys a long term bond (till retirement age, on average decades) at rock bottom interest rates (it's pegged to the overnight rate or a min…

> After all this there's the astronomical cost of living. This is also intentional, to raise the number of employees.

how does that work?

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#285

Post by mikestorrent »

wmanley wrote: post #283
mikestorrent wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while commuting each day to a developed country Must be a fully automated border or something? That kind of commute would be unthinkable between e.g. Canada and the USA for most folks

US borders are awful. I guess you get away with it because the USA is so large that most people rarely leave, so rarely have to experience it.

I'm north of the line... most of my troubles have been on the way back up except for one random search on the way down. On the way back they always give me the third degree for some reason, often searching, despite zero record and always declaring stuff. I must inspire contempt in the CBSA heart

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#286

Post by TheAlchemist »

FredFS456 wrote: post #279
TheAlchemist wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. The country's progress and management is extremely good, however it's enabled mostly by exploitation of migrant workers and various kind of white collar crimes (ie, facilitating business for illegal or sanctionned entities - cf Nvidia chips for China for example)

I think specifically for example of getting Nvidia chips to China, many Singaporeans would say that that is only illegal because the US deems it so. There is no moral reason.

Agree, the word crime was too strong. It's more of a grey zone.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#287

Post by tptacek »

foxyv wrote: post #152
jcranmer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government doesn't decide when you retire. The government decides when it is willing to pay you to be retired.

Social security is an entitlement. They have taken money from your paycheck to fund it. In fact, they have taken more from your paycheck than they will pay back to you in order to pay for an aging population. The extra goes to bonds which the government then uses to reduce inflation when they decide to invade random countries or bail out a bank. Now, why does the government get to decide when I retire with my own mon…

Well one obvious reason is that you're not retiring with your own money; your contributions fund current retirees.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#288

Post by yoyohello13 »

supertrope wrote: post #258
yoyohello13 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article basically says “yeah social security is not solvent and we probably won’t have a solution any time soon, and if we do have a solution it will be bad, but just don’t worry about it bro.”

I came to a different conclusion. That you should expect a 25% haircut through a combination of benefit cuts, tax increases, and not keeping up with inflation. That's bad, but Social Security is not going to entirely implode.

That’s the recommendation in the conclusion, and probably the advice I’ll follow because I don’t really have a better idea. Need to strike a balance between optimism and pessimism.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#289

Post by twoodfin »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #271
telotortium wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For curiosity's sake, what exactly do you think Republicans will do to "kill the ACA"? I doubt they're going to introduce a bill that revokes the ACA in its entirety. They killed the mandate almost a decade ago and the marketplace healthcare plans have continued to limp along, depending on the state. What's next?

It’s simple. One of the original tenants of the ACA was to provide subsidies for most people earning up to what would be the upper middle class between this and the insurance mandates, it would prevent the death spiral where only the sick would sign up for it, making the cost go up until it was almost unaffordable to anyone and unprofitable for the insurance companies making them leave the exchange. The first blow wa…

The expanded subsidies, which were a Covid-era enhancement some 10+ years after ACA was enacted.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#290

Post by JamisonM »

mikestorrent wrote: post #281
Grimburger wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is being entirely disingenuous and is completely different to what goes on in Dubai. I have lived there and can rattle off plenty of criticisms about the country but complaining about migrant workers who clamour to work in SG is not one of them. The vast majority of Singapore migrant workforce are Malaysian citizens who live over the border in JB, you can rent a 2 bed apartment there for $300 a month and eat out…

> while commuting each day to a developed country Must be a fully automated border or something? That kind of commute would be unthinkable between e.g. Canada and the USA for most folks

There are actually a fair number of folks that commute from Canada to the US for work. They will generally have TN Visas, it is certainly not "unthinkable" - it really does happen, although I will confess that the only folks I have ever met that did it were not recommending it to anyone else!
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